Collateral
by BetaBrass
Summary: The 72nd Annual Hunger Games. Amidst the wrath of President Snow against their family, siblings Emmer and Copper have been reaped together, and are faced with dynamics they had never planned for. With whispers of dissent in even District 2, their family is breaking, their fame is hindering and they are thrown into an arena without any indication of sponsors. *Hiatus until Dec. 2014
1. Chapter 1

**All credit is due to the author of The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins. I have several original characters, but if the name sounds familiar, it likely isn't mine. Enjoy.**

* * *

Rye Katona was always exhausted these days. He couldn't wait to make it home. His skin still itched from the eczema caused by the tropical arena's fierce humidity, and the angry red patches that had marred his skin had only receded when the Capitol had granted him a perfect complexion upon becoming a victor. Finally, the fanfare was winding to a close, and Rye boarded the train for the short ride home. The makeup still on in anticipation for his arrival back in District 2, he wanted only to forget his time in the arena. His first goal upon returning home would be to convince his parents that Strate should not volunteer. Strate was younger than Rye by less than a year, and was favored to win his Games even faster than than his two older brothers.

"Really good," Enobaria had commented to him, since his official mentor, Brutus, had essentially ignored his duties, preferring to live up his status as an older victor. Lyme had been gracious enough to mentor both him and his now dead peer Septima Yule. She even, rumor had it, overruled some of Brutus's decisions in managing sponsored gifts.

A lanky avox approached him, and switched on the viewing screen before him. Rye sat up straighter, unaware what was about to happen. A surprise interview? He was supposed to be done, aside from the welcoming festival. A white-haired president's face appeared, and Rye stopped breathing.

"President Snow, this is a surprise," Rye spoke cautiously. His older brother Cadfael, a victor from two years previous, had warned him that any contact with Snow outside the public eye was dangerous.

* * *

Rye, his mother and father sat in their parlour at Number 7, Victor's Village. The three of them were tense as they watched the eldest Katona son pace the room.

"You need to contact Lyme," Cadfael said at last, fixing Rye with a steely look. "Tell her what happened. She'll get you back into contact with the President and you'll apologize, profusely," he emphasized, "and tell him you'll do it." Cadfael, now twenty, was still conditioned, and had shouldered much of the responsibilities of the household while their father had been ill.

"No, what he's asking is wrong," Rye contradicted his older brother. Their family was close, but there was no way he'd let his brother bully him into obeying Snow's demands.

"He's not asking!" Cadfael thundered, the vein in his forehead showing. "I tried to refuse Snow, and guess what happened? He caused Uncle Tinder's and Aunt Domitia's so-called accident." He expected his father Flint to react more, to rage and for his mother Amber to slap him for his audacity to bring the subject up. Amber and Aunt Domitia had been best friends growing up. Instead, there was silence. Rye's eyes found Cadfael's, and his eyes bored into Cadfael's before shifting to something, someone, behind him. Cadfael turned to find his youngest brother, Strate, and the young cousins Emmer, Copper and Clove standing in the doorway, having returned from school. Strate simply stood, looking at his parents and two older brothers. The cousins, orphans, for the past year, had looks of shock and confusion on their faces. The oldest, Emmer, had figured out the dynamics and had gone pale. Copper's face was as stoic as ever while her twin, Clove's, complexion was becoming flushed at the news, darkening her smattering of freckles. Cadfael felt shame weigh down in his stomach, but he had a duty. He strode over to the door of the parlour and shut it without ceremony.

Strate recovered rather quickly and ushered the young cousins back out the door they came in. He grabbed a pail for each and set off to collect enough blueberries to make a pie that evening. District 2 did not have fences, since the Capitol had determined that the rough wilderness with extreme seasons would keep any discontented shackled to Panem. This wasn't so much a concern, because while some in District 2 were rumored to be rebels, the overall population did quite well. The games would take far fewer children each year than natural events like rock falls. Most ordinary citizens lived in either the main city, or else numbered mining towns. The Victor's Village sat at the edge and faced the main city to the south, with its back to the forested wilderness that hitched upward with the mountains.

Still in the parlour, Cadfael refocused on Rye. "You never stop being a Victor," Cadfael started again. "You might not be called to serve in the same way as Finnick or me." It was an empty maybe, and everyone knew it. But what choice did they have? "Call Lyme this moment. She should be home."

* * *

"Why didn't they tell us Mom and Dad were killed?" Copper asked. The four of them sat on a hillside overlooking the Victor's Village in the distance, and the city beyond it. They had collected four full pails of berries had decided to snack on some before returning home.

"Does it matter? Snow killed them." Clove deadpanned, stabbing a passing beatle with her pocketknife.

"You were going to be told," Strate said, though he nor his cousins believed his words. "But you're all young, still, and we decided we would wait."

"What were they arguing about, though?" Emmer asked. This Strate didn't know, and he said so. He rubbed his shirt over the head of his pick-axe. He was a career, but there were two others in the running for being a potential tribute. They all desperately wanted to represent the district next year. In case their trainers chose a particular tribute, the other potential tributes wouldn't have to catch up in either school or experience in the quarries and mines. Strate had just come from his shift at the quarry, and had picked his cousins up from school.

"Let's get back," Strate stood up and took up his pail. The sun was dipping low over the mountains, painting the sky a brilliant blend of oranges which blurred into purples and finally black to the east. It was late summer but the altitude pushed the temperatures down, and this was no place for the twins Copper and Clove, who were still small for their age at twelve, or even Emmer, who had gained almost all of his height at fourteen, but was gangly. Even with his pickax, his cousins wouldn't be a match for the local wolf packs and bears.

Upon entering the house, Strate funneled the younger children through the entrance hall and into the kitchen. Soon, Copper and Emmer had split the dough and were kneading it, spreading it. Clove had been truly gifted with baking, but seemed to be uninterested in it that night. Once the three were sufficiently occupied, Strate returned to the parlour and found his older brothers and parents waiting by the phone, for a return call. A moment later, it rang.

Strate sat, and all eyes bored into Rye as he picked up the phone. Exchanged pleasantries with the President. Apologized to him. Showed every grace he had shown Caesar Flickerman and Panem during his time as a tribute. Brightened and thanked the president with profuse compliments. Everyone sighed with relief, none of them aware that it hadn't mattered. Snow had made his decision hours before, and would not change his orders.

* * *

The Katona family was rapidly gaining recognition as one of the most famous families in Panem. They had successfully had Victor after Victor. Their grandfather, Thorburn Katona had been a victor years earlier, and had died the year Cadfael ascended to become a victor. Now the family's prestige was at an all-time high as Panem watched the Katona's third son interview for the Games. Like his brothers, he was the picture of the Katona family. His frame was long, filled with nothing but muscle, and his body consisted of long lines. His hair was dark, teeth straight and white, eyes wild. He was given an almost unheard of eleven for his display of ranged and close combat, coupled with raw force and stamina. He was the full package. While everyone knew anything could happen, they nonetheless staked everything on Strate.

In the 70th Annual Hunger Games, the final eight were left. Strate had fallen to neither the elements nor his peers. He was pitted against two other tributes with family victors, yet everyone knew that unless he contracted some disease, his victory was assured. Back in District Two's capital, the Katona family gathered in the living room, their reactions safely hidden from cameras. There were seven left, and the Katona family continued to exude their trademark confidently stoic presence, even in privacy. The arena flooded, and the arena turned into an endless pool of sorts. Cadfael frowned, slightly. Three left. Strate could, clumsily, swim, and continued to survive. The Katonas maintained their composure. Two left. And then Annie Cresta won the games and became victor.

Flint and Amber Katona grew stiff. Cadfael took another sip of his wine. Strate's young cousins had checked out, and stared through unseeing eyes. Rye scraped his chair back and tried to find something to do. The mail had come that morning, but everyone had ignored it, waiting to watch the end of the games, when the Katonas watched their child drown. There was an envelope with the Capitol seal for Rye. Opening it, he was assaulted with the stench of roses. Rye felt his heart skip a beat.

_On behalf of both myself and all of Panem, I would like to offer my condolences to your loss. The contributions the Katona family has made throughout the years pales to the self sacrifices that they have made. All of Panem knows of the Katona family's honor._

_Your service has been invaluable this past year, and I look forward to future years of your service to the nation._

_Signed, Coriolanus Snow, President of Panem._

* * *

The dance hall was crammed with tables of delicacies, and President Snow was seen mingling here and there. Cadfael placed one of his hands on Rye's shoulder. Neither could be present in District Two for their eldest cousin's reaping. Both had been tied to the Capitol with various assignments from Snow, though they would get to see their cousin arrive in the Capitol.

On the screen, the family's last boy, Emmer, had stepped up to the platform. He shared the family's traits, and behind them, Cadfael and Rye heard much swooning and chattering from the Capitol's citizens. Emmer's fellow tribute, Charm, was almost as tall as Emmer, denoting her expansive size and deftness. This year was destined to be like many before it; District Two was a particularly strong contender, judging by the tributes from Three, who were, even for non-careers, mediocre at best. It was good that the reapings were in order. It was still midmorning and Rye had grown tired of the hall. Rye turned to find the blood-breathed President standing just beside him.

"Ah, the incorruptible Katona brothers," President Snow beamed. "I thought I might have a word with you." Mutely, Cadfael and Rye followed him into a side room. "Close the door, if you would," the president spoke calmly. Rye complied and the raucous merrymaking was instantly reduced to a quiet murmur. "Now, how are you two enjoying the reaping party?" The brothers did not need to look at each other. Instead, Cadfael took the lead.

"It's even bigger than last year. I heard Majoris Ballyregan complimenting the spread, and we all know how much he eats before he's satisfied." Snow nodded, a small smile touching his lips.

"Now, I am sure you are both wondering why I have called you away from the festivities. I still have not gotten over the loss of your brother two years ago, such a long and drawn out way to go. I was not aware Strate would be such a strong swimmer." President Snow let his last comment hang in the air. The commentators had pulled up clips from both Cadfael and Rye's games, and even dug back into the archives to their grandfather Thorburn. There wasn't much to be seen in Thorburn's arena, but it had been confirmed in Cadfael's and Rye's clips. Both their arenas had involved some swimming. Though the vast majority of viewers were none the wiser, Snow had seen what all else were blind to. Strate's demise had confirmed a prevalent weakness in the Katona family. "I didn't expect him to last as long as he did." Snow continued, ignoring the discomfort of the brothers, "Tell me, neither of you knew how to swim for your games, so you must have ensured Strate knew how. Who's idea was that?" A beat.

"Mine," Cadfael offered. "We went to a nearby stream and taught him." The president nodded, his eyes never leaving the brothers.

"I'll cut to the chase, shall I?" He took a sip of his tea, a bite of his cake. "I am satisfied that the pair of you are willing to protect your families, correct?" A nod. For the past three, Rye had complied without hesitation. Cadfael would be starting his fifth year. "He's the eldest brother. I hear he's quite protective over his sisters. If I let Emmer play the games without interference, would he do the same?"

"Yes," Rye had no hesitation. Emmer knew the stakes.

"Excellent. Then I'll be fascinated to see what happens." They were ushered out of the room. After another hour of mingling, they retreated to the side of the room. Poor Annie Cresta had been unable to refuse the invitation to the Capitol. Another reminder of Strate's fate, and of Cadfael and Rye's inability to protect him. This was her first public appearance since her victory. She gave them a haunted look.

"You all look so related." Annie's voice was meek, and no one really knew what to say. Annie, lost in her own world, wandered off.

"Think he'll actually sit back and just watch?" Rye asked.

"Doubt it. He's already meddled." Johanna Mason, the previous year's victor, broke in with her characteristically blunt attitude. The brothers rounded on her, and she pointed to the nearest screen, which was settled onto the table, surrounded by food. Caesar Flickerman and Hunger Games analyst Lartius Baxol were deliberating on the breaking news.

"Now, this has yet to be confirmed," Flickerman opened, his face arranged in an officious mask, "but there are reports surfacing that one of the tributes has been rushed to the medical car of their train. Now, only Districts One through Five have had their reapings, and Five's train has only left the station a couple of minutes ago, so it is likely that the reports refer to one of the boys or girls from One through Four. What do you make of this, Lartius?" The man was dressed elegantly, and sported a bright purple and black suit to match his purple and white hair, obtaining a considerable clash of colors.

"It could mean anything, really, Caesar," Lartius responded. "Perhaps it is nerves, likely from tributes from Three, or maybe food poisoning. I did hear reports that one of the water mains in District One showed an unusually high measure of various impurities. Regardless, this report has the potential to greatly alter how sponsors make decisions."

"We'll be right back, after a brief commercial break." Caesar concluded. Which meant that they'd be back in another hour or so, because of all of the commercials they had to get through. Cadfael and Rye stared at each other. What more could they do, neither could think. So Rye set his glass on an Avox's tray and crowded around the screens with the rest of the horde, waiting for new information.


	2. Chapter 2

Credit due to Suzanne Collins. Other than a few characters, everything belongs to Collins. Best, BestBrass

* * *

"We shouldn't have sent him!" Uncle Flint roared. "I'm not so sure Snow's done with us, yet, and you know it." When the Katonas had returned to the Victor's Village, the two adults had shut themselves in their room.

"Of course I know that, but what choice do we have?" Aunt Amber shouted back. "If we didn't let Emmer volunteer, Snow would see that as another form of dissent. We can't afford to lose whatever favor we still have!" Clove and Copper looked at each other, their ears pressed against their aunt and uncle's bedroom door. "What if he punishes the girls?" Amber continued, her husband silent, now. "We can't send them to the arena with their brother's unpaid punishment hanging over their heads." Their uncle fell silent. "Flint, my dear," Amber started again. Her voice had fallen to her usual volume. "I would like nothing more than to have had all of our children, our family, have nothing to do with the games. I would have loved for Emmer to have ranked lower than Crucis or Atlas, and have one of them go in his place. But we have the girls to think about, now that the boys are all out of the house."

"Emmer is only seventeen," Flint countered. "Crucis and Atlas are both eighteen. How could Galahad pick Emmer?" Copper and Clove blinked at each other. They had known that Galahad, their head trainer, was responsible for deciding who could volunteer, but they had been unaware of his power to keep a specific career from becoming a tribute. Their aunt and uncle had begun to say something more, but the door's bell clanged, and resounded through the house. The twins scrambled to get downstairs and to the kitchen before their aunt and uncle could reach the door.

"Mr. and Mrs. Katona, may I come in?" It was Peacekeeper Jaral Odinshoot, the head Peacekeeper of their section. Footsteps. Copper and Clove didn't need to share a look, but they did anyway. The District Two train had only left a couple of hours ago, and the trip only lasted about three hours, so what could have happened? Had the peacekeepers somehow found out about the rebellious words spoken at Number 7, Victor's Village?

"Would you like something to eat or drink? Has something happened?" Aunt Amber's assured demeanor was back, and she led Peacekeeper Odinshoot and his colleague into the kitchen, where Copper and Clove sat, innocently shoveling raspberries into their mouths. Most prospective careers watched what they ate, but where the Katona family produced boys who would grow to be giants, the girls tended to be smaller than the average career, and the girls were always eating.

"No, thank you, Mrs. Katona. Ah, Miss Copper, Miss Clove. It is a pleasure to see you, as always." The man's bright blue eyes stood out against his worn face and grey hair. This was a man who had opted to remain a Peacekeeper, rather than return to the quarries upon the end of his 15-year service.

"And you," Copper answered. Clove was just as good at presenting herself, but often chose not to. "Are you sure you don't want anything?"

"I come with some news, actually." Jaral paused briefly and let it out. "Charm Inchcape died soon after boarding the train, a couple of hours ago." Their Aunt and Uncle, who always knew what to say, were at a loss for words. "The Gamekeepers have been informed, and have commiserated with Galahad. Under the circumstances, it was decided that Galahad choose the next tribute." He stopped talking, looking from Copper to Clove.

"How's Emmer?" Clove asked.

"He's fine. Confused, as are we all." Another pregnant pause.

"The reaping is over for the year," Aunt Amber stepped in, her voice back. "I have the utmost respect for Galahad, but surely the decision of who would replace Charm should be left up to the remaining girls in her year? Clove and Copper are only fifteen." And there he was. The enormous Galahad, who had overseen the training of every career from District Two for the last twenty years.

"Leave us." Galahad directed. He spoke to the peacekeepers, who obeyed. They withdrew from the kitchen and could be heard returning to the front stoop. Then, he spoke quickly.

"Whatever Cadfael and Rye have tried to do to appease President Snow, it didn't work. They're saying Charm died from an allergic reaction from some exotic dish, but Lyme voiced some doubts. Snow called me himself. I was to pick one of the twins and choose them as Charm's replacement." He took a breath. "I'm not sure if we can believe him, but he says this is the last payment he'll take. My guess is that he's reminding all the victors what he did to Twelve's Abernathy, and wants a younger example."

"Which one did he pick?" Flint asked.

"He says it doesn't matter, since they're identical." Galahad didn't try to preserve any feelings.

"Then who have you picked?" Amber asked, her temper flaring.

"I thought I'd ask you if you even want me to pick. I can, but I'll also agree with whatever you or the twins decide." Galahad leaned against the counter, waiting.

"I'll go," Copper found herself saying. Her voice surprised herself, and she was glad at how smooth it was. "I'll make sure Emmer gets home." She wasn't prepared for Amber's hand, which left a stinking mark on her cheek.

"Don't act as if you're responsible for Emmer. You're fifteen, you're unprepared!" Flint had grabbed Amber's wrist, but she shouted nonetheless, disregarding his murmurs to her ear. "No, I don't care if the neighbors hear, they're putting siblings in the arena together! We won't get them back!" She was shrieking, now. The peacekeepers were back, standing awkwardly in the doorway of the kitchen. "We had six kids, Flint! Six kids with Emmer and the twins. At the end of these games, we'll have three, four if we're lucky!"

Copper's eyes found Clove's. They were mirrors of each other, except for the red handprint on Copper's face. Their aunt's voice had finally died down, and she wrapped her arms around both of the twins. Flint joined, and he enveloped them all. Eventually, Galahad unwrapped the arms, extracted the new tribute and deposited her into the grasp of the peacekeepers. Out on the front stoop, Copper saw that the neighbors had indeed heard. They had gathered outside their house, and watched as Copper was led to the car that took her to the next train.

The official Hunger Games train had already left, carrying Emmer, Charm, Brutus and Lyme, and the Capitol had commandeered one of the slower freight trains that carried quarried marble and ores. Since most of the Games officials had already left, Galahad remained with her on the train. Once they had a car to themselves, he began.

"We are scheduled to arrive between Districts Five and Six. When we arrive, this train will look shoddy compared to the official Games trains, so you'll have to make up for it. The train you arrive in doesn't matter. You'll wear this dress." He thrust one a dress he had grabbed from her closet at her. "I don't know what Lyme will advise you, and I don't want you two to have to backtrack on anything. In the meantime, you're stoic, apathetic, even. You're unconcerned. Interested, but not too interested. That way, Lyme will have a chance to see how you look on screen and make whatever decisions she needs to."

"But, this is the dress I was wearing when Strate died, is that a good idea?" Copper held up the dress. It was a simple white dress with some yellow trim. She had been thirteen at the time, and though it would still fit, she wasn't sure how tight it would be.

"You can't wear what you have on," Galahad responded, "you'd look like a little boy." It was true. After the reaping, she had gone with Clove to their hillside to collect the sunflowers they had planted earlier in the spring. They'd both changed into their quarry jumpsuits and hiked up the slope. It was a sort of tradition. When Cadfael had volunteered, the younger five had gone up and collected the towering flowers. With Rye's departure, it had been Strate, Emmer and the twins. Two years earlier, it had been down to three. As the twins returned, the sun was high, and the bees hovered over their chosen flowers. Copper had strode over to the bee box, unlatched the hidden compartment and extracted her mother's flowerbook. Both had worked the quarries, but had kept up with their hobbies. Their father had been a beekeeper, their mother had been a horticulturalist. Copper placed one of the smaller sunflower heads between the large book's pages, and squashed it closed, replacing the book. It was inside when the twins had heard the muffled argument between their aunt and uncle.

"Copper, are you listening?" Galahad was waving her dress in front of her eyes. "You're wearing your cousins' hand me down work shirt, and a rolled down quarry jumpsuit. Now, put this on." By the time she had changed, the freight train had picked up speed. They had earlier slowed to allow the tracks to switch, and now they trundled at a high pace. It was lucky that District 2 was so close, they were going to arrive momentarily. Copper could feel the clash between the shiny Capitol and the smudged freight train that trundled through it. Copper knew it was good that Clove hadn't come. She would have been furious at the decrepit train, at arriving late, and at the disadvantage it would all bring.

Nonetheless, when the train slowed to a stop, Copper stepped down onto the platform to receive Capitol citizens beside themselves to catch a glimpse of her. It was disappointing, really, now that she'd seen herself on the screens. The dress she'd worn when she was thirteen had made her look rather young at the time, but in two years she had only grown two inches and five pounds and still she looked like a little girl. Not the image of a career tribute.

Reaching the second floor of the tribute's training center, Copper stepped out of the elevator to find the mentors, avoxes and Emmer.

"Copper, what are you doing here?" He had been seated on one of the couches, but now stood and met her. Clearly, he hadn't been told that she was Charm's replacement. Once Galahad gave him the details, he shook his head. "No, you're fifteen, Copper. Why didn't they send Crescent or Foxglove?" It was almost a joke, Copper realized, because Emmer had made no show of hiding his dislike for Crescent, although she had thought he had had a soft spot for Foxglove. Galahad took his leave, and Lyme stepped forward.

"Copper, we'll need to get started." And start they did. Together with Brutus and Emmer, Lyme and Copper settled onto the couches to watch the reapings, which were being played back. They showed the flawless District One careers, and District Two. Surprisingly, they covered both Charm and Emmer without much fanfare, though they were rather brief before moving to the next reaping. It was after the last reaping, where an older girl and thin boy were called, that Caesar Flickerman and Lartius Baxol returned to District 2.

"Now, earlier, we gave reports that one of the tributes had allegedly been rushed to the medical bay of their train. Soon after, an apparent replacement arrived just after District Five's tributes. Now take a look at this clip." And there Copper was. She was glad that she an unassuming expression on her face, and that she hadn't grown much, so her dress wasn't tight. Unfortunately, she didn't look fifteen. Maybe thirteen at the most. "At a best guess, she's either from District Two or Three, judging by the shipment cars of the train and the timing of her arrival. Lartius, can you read anything into her?"

"Well, she's still underdeveloped, but she looks fit," Lartius Baxol mused, studying the screen. "You can see that she's short, so likely on the younger side, but you never know with some girls. Remember Greda Spotiphor, District Nine a few years back? She was eighteen, but looked like a little boy." The two men chuckled at Greda Spotifphor, who had been promptly eaten by a swarm of ants soon after her Games began.

"I know we'll be getting an update on who she is in an hour or so, but for now, you can feel confidant that she's in the neighborhood of thirteen or fourteen years old, and either District Two or Three. Stay tuned for this brief commercial break!" Emmer had a blank face, but Copper knew what he was thinking, and she guessed their mentors were also thinking along the same vein. She was being underrepresented, compared to a previous tribute who had indeed had the body of a boy, and estimated at an age that rarely held out long in the games. Either she truly stood little chance in the arena, and Lartius Baxol was simply saying so, or Snow had orchestrated her to look weak. As soon as the program ended, Lyme took Copper to a separate room.

"What can you do?" Lyme asked bluntly. Copper didn't miss that she had emphasized the word 'can,' as if she were expecting very little.

"I specialize in knives and hammers. Any kind of pick or hammer, actually." Copper shot back, hoping she didn't sound too defensive. She was truly best at mid-range combat, but Lyme would want more.

"Are you fast?" Lyme drilled her.

"Relatively, I'm better at endurance."

"How's your hand-to-hand?"

"Good."

"Any long-range?"

"I'm good with a spear, best with a slingshot."

"Survival?"

"Great. We've been camping in the mountains since I was a baby."

"Swimming?" Copper hesitated. So Lyme knew, or had guessed, that Strate's final hours in the water hadn't been the result of simple dehydration or madness from general stress, and that he was truly afraid of the water. And she knew, or had guessed, that Rye could have become a victor a lot faster if he hadn't been afraid to dive to the bottom of the pond to get to the feast items. Putting it together would have been simple from there. Lyme fixed Copper with solid eye contact. "You'd better hope no one else figures it out. How well can you swim?"

"I guess I'm good. I sink, though. As long as I have momentum going, I'm okay." Copper knew it was the same as Strate. They had swum together in that backwoods stream, afterall. The first twenty minutes were always alright, but then the breathing would become problematic, and from there it was a slow burn that worked its way into a panic attack. Lyme took a moment, then backtracked.

"Tell me more about your weaponry." So Copper did. Lyme asked her what her favorite weapon was in general. Horseman's pick, similar to a miner's pick and her rock hammer. Any type of relatively balanced hammer or axe, and it was unlikely she'd lose. Either that or knives. What weapon could she make and use? Quarterstaves and javelins. What did she have the best aim with? Throwing axes gave her the most force. She had the best aim with knives, though she wasn't as good as Clove. She was more versatile, though. Lyme took after Clove. How were they similar? Different? Did they train together? Clove had tended to lend more brute force. She took to knives like bees to flowers. Clove was more deliberate, calculated. Her knives never missed their mark. Where Clove was measured and precise, Copper was more erratic. Clove always seemed to be able to focus, while Copper went from one specialty to the next.

"You'll need to channel your sister's focus, but good. Keep your other skills. You'll need them. As for your sister, let her go. You might not see her again, and you certainly won't for the next several weeks. Say goodbye to her, and forget her." Lyme told her. Copper had expected this. The one consistent thing all District 2 Tributes were told from the time they began training at nine years old, to the time they volunteered, was that the minute their family left the parting rooms in the capital building, their families no longer existed. "That goes for Emmer," Lyme continued. "You are no longer siblings, you are allies. Use this. You know how to work with each other." They were released for dinner.

Dinner was straightforward enough. Copper's stylist, a demure woman with simple red stripes tattooed on her face, sat between Copper and Lyme. She provided most of the conversation at their end of the table, as Emmer's stylist, Marburn, did the same at the other end.

"I want 'Copper' to be the name on everyone's lips as soon as you make your first appearance on the Chariot," Ligna explained. "Everyone's already wondering who this girl Copper is and which district she's from. Right now, it's all about maintaining that mystique. Lyme, have you decided what angle you'll play? I've got a number of different options."

"We're going to go for the slightly awkward but sweet, girl-next-door angle." Lyme answered. Copper hoped it wasn't an insult. "Like a lapdog who wants to please people." Oh.

"Excellent. I know Marburn has been planning a sort of classic Spartan look, and I've got a dress to match. You'll look like a Spartan girl, except I've taken the liberty of making it look more like the dress you wore on the train." Ligna continued.

"When will I tell people what I can do?" Copper cut in. "I don't want everyone to think I'm the weakest career."

"You are the weakest career." Lyme answered back. "And being on a chariot ride gives no indication of what anyone's skills are. You either want to look dangerous or look beautiful, but don't waste time trying to convince people you are dangerous or beautiful until you can deliver."

"So when will the chance come?" Copper asked.

"The arena. Only the other tributes see you outside of a dress before then. Now shut up and let Ligna finish." Chastised, Copper sat back and listened to Ligna asking what alterations she needed to make. Should she insert padding into the bust? No. Should she have high heels? Yes, medium height. How old does her makeup need to look? As young as possible.

"Why?" Copper asked, deciding to risk being told off. It was her life on the line, after all.

"Because you're a career." Lyme's voice was even. "You've been training for six years, which pales to the other careers' eight and nine, but the rest wouldn't stand a chance. The younger and more vulnerable you look, the more the Capitol will puzzle over why we decided to send you and not one of Charm's other contenders. They'll be intrigued. They will have only seen you as a girl who is small for your age. It will leave them with the conclusion that you're mysterious and special. You'll show none of your expertise to the other tributes, not even the careers. Come the arena, you'll be average. The harder the games get, the more you step it up. Do you get it now?" Lyme's tone had become increasingly testy with each sentence. "You're going to keep their attention by being the stoic little thing you are, and then you're going to surprise them at the bloodbath. After the bloodbath, you'll keep surprising them. Find your knives. Find an axe. Then you'll dazzle them. Now will you focus on the matter at hand?" The table was silent. Marburn had fallen silent at the other end of the table, and studied them with his penetrating pink eyes. He had had them enhanced to make them red, but the pigment had started to fade.

"Good question, though." Ligna broke the quiet. "You'll need to know this for when you're in the arena."

"Just one more question," Copper spoke up again. "Why can't I show everyone what I can do right away? Wouldn't a slow build be less interesting?"

"You already have their attention. You just need to keep it." Lyme had calmed down. "Now, both of you are done with dinner. No more." They had just finished their appetizers, and while it was quite filling, Copper and Emmer both had high metabolisms and would be hungry again in a half hour if they stopped. Lyme saw their disbelieving looks. "You're both going to get used to being hungry. You're going to have an egg for breakfast and then lunch each day with the tributes, but no dinner for the next few days. The night before the games, the pair of you are going to eat as much as you can. The morning of, you get have a light meal. Got it?"


	3. Chapter 3

All credit to Suzanne Collins, with some original characters. This chapter is still setting things up. Best, BestBrass

* * *

Copper was just starting to feel her first nerves since her surprise reaping. "Stick to the swords," Lyme had told her. "Show everyone you aren't completely useless so they don't suspect, but you're not to show off, got it?" It wouldn't be a problem. She was already hungry, and lunch wasn't for another few hours.

"What do I want to score in the private training?" Copper had asked.

"Do a mediocre job. Try to aim for whatever you think an eight would be. Now go."

Copper caught the elevator with Emmer, and the two got on with the tributes from Four and Seven. The tributes from Four seemed nice enough, but Copper made a mental note about the girl from Seven. She was almost as tall as Emmer, built strongly, and gave the newcomers a bright smile.

"Good morning. You must be that other girl's replacement." Copper nodded.

"I'm Rhymer, District Seven. This is Brannock." A quick glance at the District Fours revealed their annoyance at her pep. Copper thought it was a nice change, though.

"I'm Copper, this is Emmer." He had the decency to nod in greeting. The doors opened and the tributes entered the training center.

Once the stations were open, Copper grabbed a sword, and she and Emmer sparred with the trainers for a time. She found herself taking more water breaks than usual in an attempt to fill her stomach. The standard sword was her weakest skill, yet she found she still excelled at it compared to the other tributes. She ignored the smirks from District One and the boy from Eight who had been especially ferocious with a broadsword.

"It's too bad you were reaped this year, you'd be an expert in a couple years otherwise," Zither, the District One girl commented. Her face was nice enough, but Copper inwardly grated at the condescending tone. Zither tossed her shining hair and buried her sword into one of the dummies behind her, not needing a second glance. The tip of the sword entered the stomach, and lodged upwards into the lung region.

The first aid station was Copper's favorite, and the instructor showed her how to thread her own hair into different stitches she'd never seen before. The middle-aged man running the station seemed please with the work she did, so Copper wandered over to the fitness station. Hopping onto the treadmill, she set it for a regular clip and started up, figuring she'd go until lunch. She felt like she was wasting time, if anything. No one had been impressed with her swordsmanship, and with good reason. She was only effective with a sword when her opponent wasn't better than her. Surely Lyme knew that if she looked that helpless, the others would descend on her the first chance they got? Couldn't she just through a couple knives, or jab a few elbows? Emmer came and got her for lunch, and she was glad to have killed a couple of hours working out. Together, they dug into lunch, ignoring the puzzled looks from others around them. Let them think we'll eat ourselves dead, Copper thought. We'll surprise them.

"You can run really far," the twelve-year-old girl from Five had decided to eat with them. "How do you keep up your pace?" She didn't seem to realize that the careers were giving the girl more looks, along with tributes from other districts. Copper shrugged.

"Practice, I guess. I remind myself that I'll eat soon." Copper answered, tipping her soup into her mouth. The girl gave an awkward laugh. Copper couldn't help but notice that Zither and her district partner Furr were giving each other derisive looks. The girl, Valora, didn't seem to have the social awareness to notice, and invited herself to sit down. She began speaking to everyone, explaining everything about herself and her family at home, her cat called Rumples, and the blueberry bush by her house's front door. Why couldn't life be as simple as it was in Valora's own little world, Copper wondered. She imagined it would be so much more relaxed to be able to stand up when the bell rang and say how much she loved making new friends the way Valora did. But it was time for Copper to head back to the sword station and pretend she was better at it than she was.

The assistant at the sword station who trained with her started to give her encouragement. Originally, he had spent time trying to correct her grip on the sword. She held it as she held her daggers, in a hammer grip, blade pointing down, and used a style that was more fluid and artistic than practical. He had tried to get her to switch hands, to see if she was consistent, only to find that she held it properly in her left hand, with the blade extending up from her hand, where her thumb wrapped around. Eventually, he gave up and worked on improving her reactions. Copper was relieved to see an inkling of respect on the faces of some of her fellow careers.

The obstacle courses were competitive, and Emmer nudged Copper. If they were going to sell how mediocre she was, she had to do moderately well on the course. The tributes from One did alright, but where they were forcefully strong, they lacked dexterity. Emmer, having grown up climbing all over and around the mountains with Copper and the other Katona children, ate through them without breaking a sweat. Copper went, and found that she was equally prepared. She leaped, hooked and rolled without much difficulty, but came to a dead-stop towards the end. From the floor, this jump had seemed nominal, especially when the other careers did it. Copper was about a foot shorter, and wasn't so sure she could make it. The gap was about Copper's height, and she'd have to reach to grab the next landing. Retreating to the back edge of her platform, she took a breath and accelerated before leaping. Time froze for a moment, and Copper was painfully aware of all of the eyes watching her from below. Then her hands found the edge of the next platform, and she gripped it before hauling herself up. Stopped herself from making an unnecessary kick to show off her upper body strength.

The rest of the course was simple, and when she landed on the main floor of the gymnasium, she found Emmer looking at her. He gave her a subtle nod, showing that she'd done well. Other tributes had given her wary looks and avoided direct eye contact. The other careers began to focus on their future prey, which thankfully didn't include her. They considered her a non-threat, but skilled enough to want to avoid a confrontation at the outset. Lyme knew what she was doing, and Copper felt a new appreciation for her.

"Remember," Lyme had said, "show them your athleticism and your knives. The mentors can anonymously request specific weapons and I'll make sure to request an axe, so don't reveal it, now." Copper was just glad she was slated to go early on for the private training session with the Gamemakers. She and Emmer waited in silence, leaning shoulders against each other. She was called, and Emmer gave her a quick hug as she stood.

Copper had thought she would have been wired, standing below the Gamemakers, who sat with their notes and wine glasses, but found she was centered. Just as well. She strapped a vest on, which clinked from the knives in its many pockets. A breath. As she began to let it out, she bolted forward, hooking a knife in her right hand. She threw it at a dummy, leaping to catch on a hanging rope. Swinging back, she caught another dummy with her feet on its shoulders, toppling it and slamming another knife into the crown of its head. Clove had always been better with knives, able to hit her mark every time, with the intimidating rotating throws. Copper threw straight knives with no rotation, requiring slightly less accuracy.

She felt on fire. She was made for acrobatics. Somersaulting off the dummy, she kept her momentum as she slashed, stuck and gutted dummies, throwing in some punches and kicks. How could she have ever doubted herself? She was, pound for pound, stronger, even, than Zither or Bannock. And she knew she was faster. Focus, she berated herself. Don't just give them an artistic demonstration. Show you can be strong. The dummies were set at a standard 120 pounds, and Copper knew she wouldn't stand a chance if pinned down. Lying down, she rolled the dummy over her and lay there for a moment. Holding the dummy by the shoulders, as if pinned down, she grabbed it by the neck with her left hand and the chin with her right and jerked, breaking the inner structure of the dummy's neck. As she stood, she allowed herself to breath audibly. Let them think she was a little more winded.

"Thank you, Miss Katona." One of them dismissed her, and she rode the elevator up. A good job, Copper hoped. She had pushed herself, she knew, but in her secondary weapons.

How had it gone? What did you do and what did they say? Those were the questions waiting for her on the second floor, and she answered them as best she could. Emmer arrived soon after and looked pleased with himself. His had been excellent. He'd shown his abilities with a sword, spear and knots, and the Gamemakers had given him compliments. Copper felt her stomach clench at that. Compliments were not something she had received. Feeling sick, she was glad Lyme had send their avoxes away with the trays of food. She couldn't eat for the moment.

Zither had scored a nine, and Furr followed with a ten. Copper hadn't realized she was holding her breath until she saw her face next to a nine on the screen. Emmer's name and face were next, and a bright ten appeared next to it. Lyme gave Copper a small smile. They finished watching the scores, which spanned from a four to another nine. They were mostly made of sixes and some sevens. When it was over, Lyme tapped her on the shoulder and they went to their side room.

"Time to start thinking about the interview," Lyme commanded. "You're still the awkwardly sweet girl. Confidant, but self-effacing. Should be straightforward, because you'll be playing yourself." Copper didn't have time to question whether Lyme's passing comments were meant as complements or insults, because they were shooed to bed. The next day was spent doing some last minute practicing. The gymnasium was empty aside from Emmer and Copper, because the other tributes were presumably preparing for the interviews that evening. That was what the Katona siblings should have been doing, Copper thought. Although on second thought, Emmer was rather reserved, and his size and score would make him just seem like the strong, deadly, silent type. And if Lyme wanted Copper to just be herself, whatever that meant, then she might know best.

* * *

"Copper! What a night!" Caesar cried. Copper was taken aback at Caesar's mannerisms and personality. "Have a seat. So, are you feeling prepared?" His teeth were so white, they dazzled. Now sitting next to him, Copper saw that they were coated in an extra layer of enamel.

"I'd better be," Copper said mixing nerves with cheer. "I've been preparing for this my whole life, and its finally here."

"Now, I have to take a moment. Charm Inchcape, aged eighteen, died just after the reaping. When did you hear about it?" Caesar's brows furrowed slightly, creating his face of concern and concentration.

"Well, we have this tradition in my family," Copper began. Just be yourself, Copper thought. "where, after the reaping, we'll go up the mountain behind our house. We'll pick flowers and bring them back to our parents." Probably best to leave out that the sunflowers are a dark way of showing that flowers are the next closest thing to filling the void their children left. "We got back, and the Peacekeepers were there." Technically not accurate chronologically, but close enough.

"One of the questions being asked around here is whether there were any other girls whom Charm trained with - older girls more qualified to play? In other words, do you know why you were sent?" Caesar's eyes intently studied Copper's.

"I suppose it was because I was the best," Copper answered, kind of joking. The audience made a collective noise of approval and condescension. In the way that you might view the chihuahua who has declared itself capable of taking on a great dane. Approval for bravery, irony for being doomed. The jipped career.

"Now, you come from a very prominent family in District 2, is that right?" Caesar prompted. Copper nodded. The audience waited in anticipation. "Your family is quite known for its dedication to both the Capital and its priority of family." She nodded again. She had expected this. The Capitol loved legacy careers. They loved tragedy, too, so a tragic legacy career was being savored.

"Your grandfather, Thorburn, was the first one in the family to win the Games." Copper dipped her head in ascension. "Your eldest brother, Cadfael," Caesar recited, "was the first one of your generation to return the honor to the Katona family." The audience murmured for a moment, an air of excitement about it.

"We're technically cousins," Copper added, "but we've always considered ourselves to be siblings." Another 'aww' from the audience.

"Your second eldest brother, Rye, won the Games as well," Caesar continued. The audience began to hush, waiting to hear, again, the story they all knew so well. "and your third brother, Strate, entered the games after him. Sadly, he did not emerge from the arena, did he?" Copper had planned on allowing herself a small, sad smile before moving on, but found her reactions became lethargic. She felt her face go dead, her shoulders droop slightly. Her smile faltered. Focus, Copper coached herself. She reset her shoulders, replaced what she thought was a smile.

"Correct," Copper managed to sound smooth and even. The audience was dead silent. Drinking in Caesar's sad smile. Copper saw her own face on the screen from the corner of her eye. Stoic. Better fix that. "We were in shock for a while," Copper explained, realizing Caesar's prompt. Be yourself, Copper. "We're still so proud of how far Strate got. He worked so hard growing up, and he was looking forward to thanking all of his sponsors personally, had he gotten the chance. I guess we were just glad that Annie Cresta won in Strate's place, because she's such an honest and deserving victor." The audience practically swooned at that. Copper felt a pang of irony, because she realized that what she had said was true. She had often heard her aunt and uncle talking. They were glad Annie had won, instead of Ovid Stendis, who was a twisted boy, and had made a show of boasting about every kill. He had won, and had only died when Strate had dived beneath the water to flee from Ovid who followed, and Strate had led him through muttated piranhas-infested debris.

"What a dignified answer!" Caesar cried. Copper was feeling shaken, though she knew she had answered well. How many more questions about her family did he have? Luckily, the rest of his questions were about her, and Copper answered them while feeling Lyme's eyes drilling into her. It finally ended, and Copper returned to her seat, between Furr and Emmer. At least now she could just sit and look pretty, with no one paying attention to her. Caesar had other plans. He spent time having a one-sided conversation about Emmer's skills and abilities because Emmer, unusual for a career tribute, only answered with single words or nods and shakes.

"Emmer," Caesar said. He had already tried to get Emmer to chat or respond with more than one or two words to no avail thus far. "Are you aware that you have made history?" Copper watched with the other tributes, as Emmer's face showed confusion on the screen.

"What do you mean?" Four syllables. Caesar must be warming him up.

"Well, not only have you brought a sibling to the Games, but the Games have never seen one family give as many tributes, let alone victors, to the Games as yours." Confusion, surprise and excitement swept through the audience. Emmer and Copper hadn't been aware of this, but apparently the media had kept quiet about the sibling relation between Emmer and Copper. Somehow, no one had made the connection between Copper's media craze and her district partner who looked like a carbon-copy of their older family members. How stupid were they in the Capitol? Emmer recovered some.

"Oh. I guess so." Caesar slapped him on the back in jest. He was a top-rate performer, because he seamlessly transitioned to a tone of concern.

"You were among the top scorers, which fits your lineage and training. And it's clear from what your sister says," The audience was silent again. "that the Katona family is quite close. But it seems to me that this might mean a clash of family values." The audience began to buzz, catching on to Caesar's point. "Never before have siblings been entered in the same Games before. What do you expect will happen?" The expansive room was silent again. No one breathed. Emmer sat as if stilled through meditation. Then he spoke his first full sentence.

"There can only be one." No one was sure if Emmer would elaborate, so everyone continued their silent game. Copper saw that Emmer's, Caesar's and her own face were all featured on the screen. Then Caesar piped up, time running out.

"Indeed, Emmer. Everyone, District Two's Emmer Katona!" The audience erupted in applause, but not the usual cheers. This perplexed Copper. Were they bored of the fanfare? Emmer sat in his chair and they both saw that the siblings were focused on the screen. Looking ever so related, now that the Capital had cared to notice. The rest of the interviews were straightforward, with the audience alternately swooning over tributes they loved and providing polite cheering for the ones they thought would simply die. Manners were everything, afterall.

* * *

The tributes were herded to their respective mentors, and up the elevators to their floors. Both siblings could see the mentors were pleased with the attention they had garnered, but the four of them were silent as they rode the elevator and prepared for dinner. Emmer and Copper spent the evening eating. They didn't want to watch the interviews be aired and rehashed again and again. Lyme had told the avoxes to bring regular trays of food to each tribute, since she wanted them to eat as much as possible. The floors for Districts One through Six had balconies enclosed in force fields. The balconies offered a much smaller garden, though most tributes usually chose to use the rooftop, or so Brutus had said. Emmer and Copper took their trays to the balcony garden and sat together. They were silent until Copper spoke. Brutus had flipped on the television and was blasting the volume. They were only two floors up from the streets, and their merrymaking was even louder. Copper felt confident that any listening devices would have trouble dissecting what she said.

"Snow wants us to be a final punishment to Cadfael and Rye," she murmured. Emmer said nothing, just picked some grapes and ate. "He didn't care if it was me or Clove," she continued, "wanted us to decide. I volunteered." Emmer still said nothing, but looked at her, sucking on a rib. "I told Aunt Amber I'd send you back."

"That's stupid," Emmer responded. "Why'd you do that?" He ignored the last thing she said, choosing to focus on her impulsiveness.

"You know Clove is too delicate. She shouldn't ever go." they knew this was true. She had always been the brazen, more confident one of the twins, but was more fragile, as it turned out. Watching Strate's death had driven her to a rage that had taken months to die down. When the fever of her anger receded, it had left a madness that remained.

"You're not so different," Emmer commented after a minute. He saw Copper's questioning look. "Clove's always been more expressive than you, and you're more stoic, that's true. But you both have the same capacity for things." He took the tray's knife and cut into an apple.

"Capacity for things?"

"For anger, humor, impulses, stuff like that. You just use it differently. I'm surprised you got the jump on Clove to volunteer." Copper had been surprised, too. She took up her own knife and began slicing a persimmon. A long companionate silence held between them. Then Emmer spoke up again. "There can only be one." They had always been close, especially after being orphaned, so Copper read him immediately.

"Aunt Amber has always favored you. She's loved us all, but she loves you most. I can't go home to her, now. It has to be you."

"I won't do it." Emmer said aloud. I won't kill you, he meant. They were at an impasse, and they both knew that when push came to shove, Emmer would have his way.


	4. Chapter 4

Credit to Suzanne Collins, save for some original characters. Best, BestBrass.

* * *

Ligna laid out Copper's arena uniform before her. It was unexpected. The pants were a greenish-khaki. Sturdy socks and a plain white undershirt. Buttondown greenish overshirt. Lace-up boots. Good quality belt. When Copper dressed, she felt that she looked like she was to be sent to a real war from a time long-forgotten, not an arena with children as young as twelve.

"Expect some cool nights, but it might also be warm." Ligna advised. Her face showed that she knew how useless this information sounded. She proceeded to braid Copper's hair in a tight, neat french braid. Her earlier chatter had told Copper that Ligna hated it when braids started at the crown of the head, but she proceeded to do exactly that. She realized that Ligna probably didn't want Copper's mane of hair to get in the way while she fought to the death. Ligna braided it to the end, and wrapped several extra hair bands along the braid.

"For later, when the end one snaps." Ligna knew what she was doing. So many times, stylists would provide only one or two hairbands for the girls, and they would be stuck with a head of loose hair by the second or third day. Ligna had provided her with about fifteen hairbands. Thinking she was done, Copper was about to hop down from the stool when Ligna stopped her. She then took a case of hairpins, and proceeded to secure every part of her braid, and even stuck a couple into the lining of her uniform, and remembered to add a couple of hairbands on her wrists. Finally, she brought out the token. Copper had forgotten about a token.

They had given Emmer the family token, which was a platinum pendant of the family crest. Not that the Katonas had a crest, exactly. The former Katona family home, nestled in the crook of one of the mountains surrounding District 2's capitol, had had a platinum doorknocker. No one was sure why or where the doorknocker came from, nor why it would be made of such a valuable metal, but there it was. When grandfather Thorburn won his games, they were moved to the Victor's Village. Some great uncle hadn't wanted to leave without a piece of their home, so they melted down the door knocker and had it cast into its current form. Now, the pendant gleamed from regular polishings, and formed a coin-like shape with a hole near an edge to be strung up. It wasn't very big, since the rest of the door knocker's material had been saved, but it was sizeable, about an inch and a half in diameter. A faint outline of a sunflower was cast into the token.

Copper's token was clearly created with Clove's input. She may have even done it herself. It was a piece of obsidian, strung through with a copper chain, or perhaps it was brass. The obsidian had been polished some, but held its imperfect shape and conchoidal fractures. After Rye had won his Games, the siblings had all gone up the mountain and had spent several days wandering around. They had taken the time to just be together, savoring what they thought had been a near-miss from President Snow's wrath. Quietly celebrating their relative safety. Coming upon a vein of obsidian was by chance, when Emmer had stumbled and slid down a section of the outcrop they were on. When Copper caught up to him, she and Clove had found him running his fingers over the shining volcanic glass. They'd used their rock hammers to chip lumps out of the seam, and had gone home with their pockets full of it. Now Copper held her token, appreciating the memory. Clove had clearly taken point on the token, from the rock to the joke on Copper's name. She slipped it over her head and tucked it under her shirt.

Together, Copper and Ligna sat for a moment. Then Copper got up, remembering Lyme's instructions. She did jumping jacks, a couple pushups, and more jumping jacks. Getting the more explosive nerves out. Don't run in screaming, Lyme had said. 'Run in hyped, run in blind.' A victor's proverb. The cue came for Copper to step into the tube. Ligna and Copper embraced.

"I expect to see you again," Ligna whispered in her ear, and then echoed her brother's words, "There can only be one." In the tube, Copper was sealed in. The platform began to rise. The light was bright, but overcast. Above ground, now, it was a large town center. Cobbled streets, picturesquely stacked buildings, winding alleyways. They were in the town center, with their backs to the many streets and alleys that sprawled outwards. The town center wasn't so much a town center as it was a cobbled bazaar area. There were some trees planted at the edges of the bazaar. Where was the Cornucopia? That must be it, Copper realized. It was the building in the center of the tribute's circle, and looked like any of the other buildings, except that it was made of metal instead of brick and stone. It had large openings that resembled the mouth of a cave, and they were symmetrical, apparently, because Copper could see the tribute on the opposite side of the circle from her, through the building. It was Emmer.

The countdown had started, and Copper looked around. This year was particularly sparse. Some years had more supplies lying around, but this time they were all contained in the Cornucopia building, scattered in a smaller area. Where were specific weapons? If she were to just find her knives, axes, or pick, she just might win these games or, failing that, push Emmer to victory. She saw none, though. Her nerves were down, but it looked like she was running blind, anyway. The clock ticked down. The tributes were spaced quite closely this year. It was normal for the spacing to fluctuate, but Copper realized there was less than six feet between her and the tributes that flanked her. Fifteen seconds, now. The tribute to her right was the twelve-year old boy from twelve, and the enormous boy from Six on her left. He was alternately eyeing both her and the girl on his left, the girl from three. His focus settled on Copper. Nine seconds left. And then a mine blew. It was a few pedestals to Copper's left. She dropped to her knees, trying to stay on her pedestal. The boy from six had managed to stay on his as well. He was facing Copper, trying to paw debris from his eyes. How the two tributes flanking the one that had blown up had stayed on their pedestals was a mystery to Copper. Two seconds. Copper rose to a crouch. The cannon blew.

Copper shot forward, not sparing time to check to see if Six was following. About half of the tributes were waiting on their pedestals still, wondering if they would have another start. It had occurred to Copper that she should have waited for another tribute to step down first, to avoid being blown up, but she was running now, intact. Nearing the Cornucopia, she saw Emmer coming her way. He got to the supplies first, looked up at her. Shouted something. Copper felt a hand close around the fabric at her shoulders, and was lifted off her feet. She was slammed onto her back and saw Six standing above her. He had begun to reach towards her when Emmer slammed into him. Copper rolled to her feet, watching Emmer. He had a black object in his hands, which he jabbed into Six's side before turning and herding Copper to the supplies pile. Six stared at them for a moment and took off towards an alleyway, opting to forgo the Cornucopia.

Emmer pressed a stiff, bulky vest with knives into her hands and slapped a green helmet on her head. She had just strapped them on when she froze. Many of the tributes had bolted away once the careers had made it to the Cornucopia. But she saw now why no one had died, yet. There were very few weapons, and that Emmer had even found the vest was a stroke of luck. Tributes were scrambling around, opening containers only to find medical supplies, food, and sleeping bags. No weapons, yet. The girl from Ten had opened one of the many containers, though, and all became clear. The case held several grenades. Copper wasn't the only one who saw them.

The girl from Six, and a plucky girl from Five began to squabble with Ten over the grenades. None of them knew how they worked, though they knew that they would detonate. Ten pulled a pin. Copper flashed back to memories of her tutor. One of the history sessions last year had featured an image. The chapter had covered what people in the past had called World War II, implying that there had been a first World War. There had been a reproduction of some of the propaganda material, with a stylistic drawing of soldiers walking uphill. They'd had rifles with wooden buttstocks slung on their shoulders and grenades clipped to their jackets. Ten had pulled the pin.

"Emmer!" She screamed. He was just cinching a helmet onto his own head when she tackled him. The grenade went off, and Copper's sight went dark.

She fumbled around, struggling to untangle herself from Emmer's long limbs. They had been thrown deeper into one of the piles of supplies, and crates and bags collapsed over them, cocooning them. The sounds of the squabbling had ceased. Shuffling, maybe, but it could have just been Copper and Emmer fighting to the surface of the pile. They emerged to find their surroundings covered in bits of the girls from Five, Six and Ten. The other grenades must have gone off, because there were two bodies that had fragmented into limbs, and a third blood trail where one of the girls had run away. Stumbling out of the pile, Copper saw that more of the crates had been blown open. A pistol glinted in the light.

Scrambling, Copper reached it just as the boy from Five ran for it. Her hand found one of the knives in her vest. She stood and threw. The knife was fast, but her eye followed its slight arc as it soared straight into the boy's diaphragm. It buried itself almost up to the hilt. Emmer strode to Five and grasped the knife, twisting, re-angling it and thrusting it up to sever the artery to the boy's heart. Ever the gentleman, Emmer wiped it off and tossed it to Copper who slipped it back into her vest. Emmer had made the first official kill, if you didn't count the kid who had set off her mine or the girls who had blown themselves up.

A bang. Emmer and Copper whirled to see that Zither had found a pistol, and had killed the boy from Nine. She revelled in her acquisition as she aimed at the boy from Three. She missed, but the boy was so afraid he seemed to be rooted to the spot. She strode up to him and finished him off point blank. Then she tossed Emmer and Copper a devilish grin before running after the boy from Twelve, Furr running off in another direction. A gunshot. A minute later, another bang.

It was the cannons, this time. They counted seven cannons. A low number for the bloodbath. There were usually a couple more who died, but no matter. Emmer began to pick through the crates. Copper found a jacket and put it on over her shirt and vest. It shared her pants and shirt's coloration, and was a dull sort of greenish grey, but blotched for camouflage. Surely there was a pick. Just one axe. Anything. Copper snapped a box open, swinging the lid up. Bits of wood, bits of metal. They were pieces of a rifle. The image of the World War II soldiers surfaced in her mind again.

"It's a waste of time," Zither called to Copper. The careers had taken one of the buildings closest to the Cornucopia, with windows facing it, and on either side of it. The Cornucopia was just south of their building. Zither had two pistols, one on her hip, and the other in a shoulder holster she had found. She had let her hair down, and was waltzing around, savoring her status as having the most kills. Furr was looking sullen, because he hadn't yet had a kill. Indigo and Azulina from Four had gone out to hunt, but it was unlikely that they'd find anyone. Brannock and Rhymer from Seven had joined their alliance, but Copper could feel the tension taking root. Fewer tributes had died in the bloodbath, and the career alliance was bigger this year than usual. It made for an interesting Hunger Game.

Copper ignored Zither, and continued to fix pieces together. She had taken one of her uncle's rifles apart that one time last year. He had found her, sprawled on the back porch, with parts lined up around her. He had scolded her and confiscated the rifle. He had lectured her as he put the pieces together with his practiced motions, about why a fourteen year old should not handle firearms without an adult, especially one who had no training. Goodness knew what would happen if it were to surface that firearms were in possession of anyone other than a Peacekeeper. Perhaps she had retained some of her knowledge. She snapped the last piece into place. Pulled out her cartridges and fit it into place. Looking up, she found that Zither had focused back onto the streets below, and the others had gone to debrief Brannock and Rhymer; where had they searched, what had they found, was there extra food? Emmer sidled over, hefting the sword at his side. It seemed more ceremonial than battle-ready in style, but was clearly made with strength imbued from technology.

"Will it work?"

"In theory," Copper answered. She knew it would, but didn't want to seem too sure of herself just yet. Judging by Emmer's face, he understood. Copper was becoming increasingly aware of the advantage of their ability to communicate and work together. It didn't outweigh her preference to not have to choose between losing another sibling or dying herself, however. "Let's test it."

The careers had just settled in when a cannon went off. Faces turned to the District 7 tributes. They shook their heads, showing that they had nothing to do with it. A few minutes later, the fallen tributes roll began. As expected, the seven who had died at the bloodbath were shown. The eighth was the girl from Five who Copper had seen with the grenade. So she hadn't escaped unscathed. Eight had died so far, which was on the low side of normal. It meant a hunt tonight.

Copper inwardly fumed. Between the careers, they had over a dozen grenades and crates and crates of supplies in the Cornucopia, but none of them were willing to take the time to figure out a way to safeguard their den. Emmer sensed her mood and fell into step beside her while they hunted. He had pilfered several bayonets and fixed them to the ends of a shovel handles, broom handles and rods to use as spears. He was annoyed that the traditional weapons were not included at the Cornucopia.

It worried Copper that the gamemaker's strategies had shifted. Pistols, rifles, grenades, but limited traditional weapons? With traditional weapons, it was difficult to kill anyone by accident, but Copper would not be surprised if the gamemakers wanted the 72nd Hunger Games to end early. Or late. It itched in Copper's memory. What had Valora, the now-dead twelve-year-old from Five said? She had talked about her pets, her siblings, and how they had to have Peacekeepers posted at the schools to remind everyone of the Capitol's presence. She had mentioned that people were hungrier this year than last, colder and more annoyed. Was it possible that the gamemakers were trying to instigate a Game where tributes had less experience, less chance to win? Perhaps they wanted to remind the districts of their utter dependency. We could kill each and every one of you. We control how fast, or how stretched, each Game, each death, occurs. You may win, occasionally, but only if we say so. Copper would not allow such an outcome. Over my dead body, she thought. Ha.

The careers had decided to sweep the north sector of the arena, which covered the section with their own den. They had decided that Fur would lead the hunt, since no one truly cared this early in the Games, and he claimed that this setting was similar in architecture to his neighborhood. Of course it was, since the town the arena depicted was artistically rustic and timeless. As their district's export was luxury, of course they lived it it. Night had truly fallen now, and Azulina, brazen with her pistols, headed the group. After the bloodbath, almost everyone was armed with pistols, save for Copper, who must have looked like she had an odd obsession with the disassembled rifle, and Brannock, who preferred his knife and grenades and nothing else. Aside from Brannock, the careers were loaded to the nines. Even Martial, the boy from Ten who had joined them, was covered in vests and clips with various tools and materials. He was comfortable using rope, and had some clipped to his belt.

The careers had just finished searching their seventh building. Back out on the street, they prowled under the moonlight, cursing the brightness. They were almost certain it had to be enhanced by the arena, because no way was the night that clear, the moon that full, big and bright. Collectively, the careers were surprised at the temperate conditions in the arena. Arenas were normally designed to be unbearable in one way or another, be it through humidity, dryness, utter cold or some combination thereof. As it was, the day had been warm, but not unbearably so, and the night air was cool and soothing. Copper had been checking their rear when she turned to the front in time to see Emmer drop to his knees.

A cannon rang into the night. Copper heard herself shout, felt herself brush past Martial to get to him. Later, Copper would remember that Martial tried to grab her, hold her back, drag her to the safety of an alley before she shook him off. The other careers had scattered, charging in different directions in search of their assailant. It was then Copper realized that they had become used to Zither's pistol sounds, and could easily distinguish them from cannons. But what she thought was a cannon at first was different, tinnier, almost. She planted her feet beside Emmer, unslinging her rifle. She judged the shooter was ahead of them. Emmer had fallen forward, and the sound echoed off of buildings, making it difficult to pinpoint the source, Copper felt like she knew, anyway. Where would she choose to roost? There.

It was a gamble, but Copper sidestepped, stopped and dropped to one knee, aiming in an arbitrary direction. She paused for a beat and flattened herself to the cobbles. Another shot rang out, gouging the street somewhere near her foot. And then she was up. She had seen the fiery muzzle blast from the rifle. Standing, she mirrored the stance she had seen in that old World War II drawing. Ignored the sights for the most part, trusting her body to make adjustments for her. Looked with both eyes at the figure in the window. Squeezed the trigger. The kickback was more than she had expected, but she managed to avoid hitting her face. She used the rifle's momentum to sling it on her shoulder as she took off towards the building, shouting at the other careers to stay with Emmer. Privately, she added that she would kill them all if they let him die. It was only the first night, after all.

She sped up the stairs, grabbing a knife in each hand. Unslinging her rifle. She cradled one knife in her left, gripping it to the rife, while holding the other pointing upwards, holding the rifle normally. She was fairly certain the knife in her right hand was a bad call, since there was the chance of stabbing herself in the eye, but justified it. She didn't know who the figure in the window was, who she was up against. They had been on the third floor, so she got off the stairs on the second. They'd know she came in through the door facing their street, so she ran through the second floor and up another set of stairs. Every building they had been in was similar in architecture, and featured at least two sets of stairs, sometimes a third or fourth. Approaching the third floor, Copper slowed down. It had maybe taken her about a minute and a half to fire her shot and run to where she was now. There was carpeting on the stairs, silencing her steps, but she smoothed her gait to her stalking prowl, anyway. And there it was, the room that held windows facing that street. The door looked flimsy enough. There was a pile of furniture surrounding it, creating a barricade effective for just about no one except for the limbless. She braced herself against a dresser and kicked the door in.

The moonlight flooded in when the door flew open, shining through from the other end of the hall, illuminating the slumped figure beneath the window. The pool of liquid gave Copper a sense of fear. If they were playing dead, she just might be seeing her last sight. But if they weren't pretending the severity of their injury, it wouldn't do to waste her ammunition. She stepped into the room, kicked their rifle away. They stirred, looked up at her.

It was the girl from Three with the name of a plant. Laurel?

"Laurel, right?" Copper asked. She had always been good with plant names. Plants in general. And bees. They were the only things she had of her parents. Focus. She looked so small. There was a gash along the side of her head, and strip of her scalp was missing. She managed to nod.

"Please, don't kill me." She was begging. Her voice was weak, her eyes pleading. Damn this moonlight, it lit up the room with its unwavering silvery beam. Laurel's hazel-green eyes were struck by the moon's beam and they seemed to glow. Copper had a fleeting admission that she didn't want to kill the girl. She was even younger than Copper. But the girl wouldn't survive the night, not with the amount of blood she had lost. It wouldn't do to have a career show such a weakness, either. Kneeling before the girl, now, she allowed herself to say something non-committal.

"You shot my brother." She took Laurel's hand in her hand and squeezed while sinking her knife into the girl's heart with the other. What had she done? A true canon rang out. Those hazel-green eyes were still staring at her, almost kindly. She knew they were the eyes of a dead girl, but it felt unearthly. She felt that those eyes would follow her out the door just like a painting if she didn't make amends. Copper swept one eye, then the other, closed. How the hovercraft would reach Laurel, Copper didn't know, but she wasn't about to desecrate the girl's death any more than she already had. Standing, she took her knives, the box of ammunition, the girl's rifle and headed out the door.


	5. Chapter 5

All credit is due to Suzanne Collins. I have added some original characters. All the best, BestBrass.

"What took you so long?" Azulina called as Copper emerged from the building. They had all waited, as she had told them to. Or perhaps they had waited for fear of taking on the figure in the window.

"I was collecting this," Copper shot back, showing her new rifle and ammo. The extra rifle was firmly shouldered across her back and chest, showing that she had earned it, it was hers. No contest was made.

"Who was it?" Furr asked as Copper strode towards them.

"Girl from Five." Copper responded. Debrief could happen later. "Emmer!" No response. Her stride broke into a run, and she dropped the box of ammunition as they parted to reveal Brannock kneeling over Emmer, Martial standing over them. "How is he?"

"He's alive. Got a hole in his arm. I think he's just passed out." Brannock answered. He shifted to make room for Copper.

"Emmer, can you hear me?" His eyelids twitched. She pried one of his eyes open and turned his head slightly to towards the moon. The pupil contracted. He likely passed out from pain rather than hitting his head, since his helmet was fine, and the bullet was accounted for through the hole in his arm. He was lucky it had missed the bone and passed right through. They had tied the bleeding off with a cord Martial had collected from the Cornucopia.

"We should keep hunting," Furr suggested. He had yet to get his first kill. The setup of this year's arena had prevented most of the careers from getting their glory at the bloodbath, and they were itching to show the Capitol how they'd earned their scores.

"You can," Copper answered. "I'm taking him back." Furr stared at her.

"You can't carry him all the way back," Zither explained.

"It's not like you'll carry him on your hunt, and we're not leaving him lying around here. You don't have to come, I'll take him."

"You can't carry him all the way back," Zither repeated. Copper was about to respond when the moon was blotted out. The hovercraft had appeared, gliding over them. The claw dipped in through the window. It slowly, carefully, lifted the girl through the window, and the moonlight reappeared, lighting up Laurel's body. When the careers returned their attention to Copper, they came to see her half-way down the street, supporting the ample frame of her brother. Brannock gave chase and took Emmer's other arm, draping it over his shoulders, evening the weight. The rest of the careers gathered their things and continued their hunt.

"You didn't have to come, you know," Copper told Brannock. They had carried Emmer back to their den and settled him onto the couch. It was true, because Copper's struggle had mostly dealt with balancing Emmer, but it had certainly made her work faster. Brannock cocked an eyebrow. "But thanks."

"I'll take watch, you can look after him." Brannock answered. He gently picked up Copper's rifle, took it to the windows and got comfortable. Copper dug into their piled medical supplies. She was glad she had spent quality time at the first aid station in training, because she knew to poke around his arm to see if an artery had been breached. It had been nicked, so she clamped and stitched it shut. Then she set about stitching the holes in his arm. The bullet was of a lower caliber, because it really only made a hole in, and a slightly larger exit hole through the back of his upper arm. Luckily it was his left, so healing would be a simpler affair. She sanitized and stitched it without error and bandaged it securely. He had stirred some, but Copper was pretty sure he was simply asleep at that point. Copper took the rifle back and took first watch. The moon slid across the sky, casting long shadows, and she eventually passed her watch off to Brannock and settled into the extra couch he had vacated. The rest of the careers hadn't returned, and dawn was nearing. Copper surfaced from sleep to the sound of footfalls. Heard Brannock lift the rifle and creep out of the den. Sank into sleep again. A grunt, a thud and a clatter.

Copper tensed and sat up. Brannock wouldn't have tried to keep silent if he'd tripped. It was a stealth move by someone furtive. She checked on Emmer, who was on the couch, still except for his breathing. Her vest was on, so she picked up the extra rifle and checked her ammunition. It had come from upstairs, on the roof. Her suspicions were confirmed when she saw the door to the roof ajar. Creeping up, rifle at the ready, she saw the unnatural moonlight was waning, while the dawn's light began to take the edge off the night sky. The whole scene was unreal. That and Brannock's boots sticking out from behind part of a wall. She crept out of the stairwell, rifle at the ready, and stared around her, daring anything to pop out. She circled around the wall. Aside from Brannock, there was nothing but some crates filled with glass and other debris. Whoever left Brannock must have run. Shouldering her rifle, Copper knelt by the boy whose head had already begun to swell.

"Wake up, Brannock." He gave a low moan. A shifting and clinking as bottles knocked against each other. A boy burst from behind the crates and made towards her. Copper had just unshouldered her rifle, and was raising it, when he crashed into her, sending the rifle clattering out of reach.

"I've had my eyes on you lot, Two," he hissed. "The other careers are far out of earshot, held up in some building, gorging themselves most likely." It was the boy from Eight. His hands wrapped around her neck and she gave a strangled yell, grasping at his face. His arms were long, though, and he kept it out of reach. He had straddled her, and calmly pinned each arm under each of his legs, switching hands so he could keep ahold of her throat. She was flushed from a lack of air, but she was also furious. He was fourteen, from Eight, and he had toppled a much larger assailant and a career without much effort. He wasn't much bigger than Copper, but he was big enough to hold her. It was a classic move. A tribute died this way just about every year. Fighting the fuzziness at the edge of her eyes, Copper worked her core.

She saw her feet wrap up and around Eight's shoulders and neck from behind, and she jerked, prying him away from her neck. Eight had hit his head, and lay, dazed while Copper coughed and fought for breath. The two of them lay for a couple of moments, and then Eight was on her again, wrapping his hands on her neck all over again. And then he was gone. His grip on her neck had fought to stay on, and she was almost taken with him, but ultimately his fingers loosened and she was only dragged along the rooftop for several inches. When she looked up, she saw Eight being borne into the air by a pair of monstrously strong hands before he disappeared. Seconds later, there was a crunch followed by a cannon.

Emmer stood at the edge of the roof, looking down at where Eight had fallen. Brannock had jerked awake and stared, propped on an elbow. Emmer turned, scooped Copper up like she weighed less than air, and as her vision flickered out, she could only see Emmer's face set in hard lines, struck by moonlight.

* * *

"The pair of you are just liabilities for one another," Zither commented when Copper woke. She was lying on one of the couches, a sleeping Emmer's head resting on an arm which lay across Copper's stomach. Copper yawned and nodded off again. It was the third day when the Katona siblings were up and about again. Brannock was still suffering from a mild concussion, and was laid up in one of the couches. Copper was cleaning her rifle, and Emmer was running a finger along his bayoneted spears, checking their sturdiness. They had cleared the northern sector of the arena, although nothing prevented the other tributes from simply moving into the area after they swept it. At least they would learn the layout of the arena, and be able to split up and hunt in smaller groups with wider swaths. Then, the Games could proceed towards the final eight tributes. With any luck, it would be composed of the career tributes and two unlucky souls.

The third day came with the career pack hunting through the western section of the arena. They had split up this time. One of the buildings was taller than the rest, and after clearing it, the careers decided to leave Azulina, who had the best whistles and bird calls, atop it. She'd make a crow's call to alert Zither, Emmer and Martial that there was someone on their street. One call meant south, two was west, three was north and a long call followed by a short one meant turn back, missed one. The same pattern applied to the group with Furr, Copper, Indigo and Rhymer, but with a blue jay call. The crow group would take the southern half of the western section, and the blues would take the northern half of the section. They would work along their streets, and when one group came to the next intersection, they would wait until they could see the other group before continuing on their street. The careers had gone through several blocks by the time the sun was setting, and they made their way back. They would not hunt in the eastern sector that night. They would rest through the fourth day, and allow the other tributes a sense of security. The fourth day would find them preparing for their hunt, for that night, they would split up and take the east, west and north sectors by storm.

They found evidence of a tribute's den in the western sector, and a suspected one in the eastern sector, though it might have simply been a stopping place for a moment. Back at their den by the dawn of the fourth day, the careers planned their hunt. Furr, Zither and Azulina would take the west, Indigo and Rhymer the north, Emmer and Copper the east. Brannock was still acting concussed, so he stayed behind with Martial, who would keep watch over the den. Each group would rotate each day and night, to ensure equal sleep, supplies and opportunity to hunt.

Copper fell into step beside Emmer, feeling a guilty sort of happiness. The pair of them would, in all likelihood, die in this arena, potentially at Snow's specific orders. Yet she still felt a sort of contentment at wandering the arena with her brother. If only they could be back in the mountains of Two, with Clove at their side. Even better, if they had all the Katonas together. Even the unnatural moonlight didn't distract from her contentment tonight.

"One thing," Copper broke their silence. They had decided to break from their hunt to sip water and sit in the doorway of one of the many buildings in their section. She dug her hand down her shirt and pulled out her token. "Should you need to, take my token back home." Emmer gave her a glance. His eyes held a knowing quality. He read into her face and words. This conversation wasn't solely for Emmer; he realized that Copper was designing it for two sets of listeners.

"You'll take it home, yourself." He responded, keeping any sort of overreaction to a minimum.

"I mean it, Emmer." Copper pressed on. "I don't want it to be delivered with my body. Clove designed it herself, probably made it for all I know. I want it to be delivered by you." A beat hung in the air. He nodded.

"Then you'll do me the same courtesy." He pulled out his own token. The family token of the platinum coin with the faint sunflower sketch. "Deliver it to the mantlepiece yourself." Copper nodded for a moment, then snorted. "What?"

"You can't seriously think I'll make it out of here?" Copper mocked him. Give them the tragic humor. Emmer bristled, taking it seriously.

"I won't allow it any other way." This stopped Copper. It wasn't his normal style to dictate decisions to others, even if others were privy. Normally, he would say something with a bit more tact. Now, he gave no room for debate, which he should have known would set Copper off, audience or not.

"Oh, you won't allow it?" Copper mocked again, this time for real. "And you think your authority as benign big brother will help enforce your decision?" She had wanted to rile him up. Knew that this was the trick to get it done. Yet Emmer's silent, brooding nature had come back, and another silence followed. After a while, he shifted from sitting across from her to her side, and laid an arm around her, and the siblings sat for a moment, staring at the enhanced moon.

"There can only be one," Emmer said, echoing his words from his interview. They sat for several moments more. It was then that Copper felt a sad sense of peace. One or both of them would be dead soon, but for the moment, no one could change their agreement to carry the other one's tokens home. No one could take their sense of family from them. Somewhere, a shout broke the silence. It was far away, and came bouncing off the buildings, preventing any pinpointing. The siblings reluctantly stood and continued on their hunt.

"Does it feel like the Games are too easy this year?" Emmer asked after a while. They had come to an apartment, empty of course. They had swept the building, and were sure of their safety.

"Sort of," Copper admitted. "but what do you mean?"

"Its the fourth day, and only ten are dead so far, all from injuries from other tributes." Usually, tributes would die of dehydration, starvation and other hazards the arena provided. That the arena itself hadn't provided many dangers was worrisome. What were they keeping in store? "Do you think they're planning something, or do they just want to get all the tributes to kill each other?" Copper shrugged. They didn't want to go too far into discussion. The gamemakers wouldn't want them to analyze their tactics. But it was true. The night ended without incident.

The plights of the tributes was far from easy, however, as they realized that food quickly became scarce. The careers had claimed the food from the Cornucopia, but it had started to run low by the sixth day. Even with rationing, they realized it would not last beyond the tenth day, and they would need to find some other source of food. Yet the arena was an abandoned city from some lost age. No birds or other animals to be found. Not even rats. Emmer had quietly pointed out the bushes with branches picked leaves. The other tributes were struggling, and were eating the vegetation that the arena provided. It wasn't toxic, apparently, because no one died for days. It was the ninth night that brought the careers back on alert.

It was Copper and Emmer's night on watch duty. Brannock had joined the hunt earlier, and was back in the den on watch and rest shift. They heard shouts, and looked out the windows to see the careers had returned early, and were calling for a first aid pack. When the three of them got down to the street, however, they saw it was useless. Furr had taken a liking to Azulina, apparently, and was determined to see that she make it, but the others stood back, arms crossed, unreadable expressions on their faces. Azulina lay, blood draining from her face as Furr prattled on about how the sponsors would surely send something, now. No one had received any gifts so far. And if the careers weren't receiving any, it was a safe bet the rest were also going without. Azulina's blood filled the spaces between the cobbles of the street, creating a grim contrast of colors. She had been stabbed, and was, for all intents and purposes, gone.

"It was the girls from Eight and Nine, and the boy from Eleven," Indigo told the rest of the assembled tributes. "We weren't there," he gestured to himself and Zither, "but it sounds like Furr and Azulina were checking different rooms when they jumped her. She reckons she shot one of them, but they all got away." There was nothing much to do. Martial hung back with Furr while he muttered nonsensical things to himself. Azulina had died by this point, the cannon making everyone flinch. The rest went upstairs to reorganize their hunting groups. It was a different Game this year. Normally there would have been more development at this point. Fewer tributes left alive, more gifts from sponsors, more deadly trials from the arena. It seemed as if the Capitol was withholding gifts, and that the gamemakers were kicking back to see what happened. The careers had been brought up studying a specific type of Game, one where the gamemakers would throw things at them left and right, broken up by sponsor gifts. The tributes seemed at a loss for what to do. What was happening? Were there no viewers? Copper's mind flashed to life in District 2.

It had always been safe, growing up in 2, but suddenly she thought not. Just about every other Game, some tribute from Eight, Eleven or Twelve would accuse someone from One or Two of being the Capitol's lapdogs. It hadn't always been that way. Only while backpacking in the wilderness would Copper's parents explain what happened to their great-aunt and great-uncle, and only in hushed tones. Their grandfather Thorburn had had two siblings, a brother and a sister. They were both long gone now, having disappeared after a knock on their door one night. Thorburn had never known what had happened to his older brother and sister, but he did have a fairly good idea of what had caused the knock on the door. They had been rebels, and fairly high-profile ones at that. After they had disappeared, others from their network had gone, too, and it wasn't a stretch to conclude that the Capitol had broken the siblings to obtain the names of their colleagues. With the disappearance of so many rebels, it became clear that the Capitol was weeding, and had just wrestled the deep-seated roots to the surface. And Copper hadn't noticed the new signs. Her tutor's disappearance, for one.

Her tutor, Finch, was a middle-aged woman who was one of the teachers assigned to students training to be career tributes. She had taught her subjects, and had included history. History was one of those subjects discouraged from lesson plans, and now Copper saw why Finch had suddenly gone into early retirement. Her lesson plans had probably been discovered, or perhaps she had scented danger in the air and fled. Copper hoped it was the latter. "History is written by the victors, Copper," Finch had told her, gently paging through her stacks of ancient books. There were even some in languages Copper had never heard of. Finch had admitted she had never been taught how to read, what was it - German, or French or Spanish - but she kept the texts around, anyway. She had taught herself one of those languages from a self-tutoring book. She had given Copper extra assignments when Copper had blown off her readings about some English armies that had taken over far off places with guns, disease and technology. They sounded like the Capitol, but less sanitary. Copper had to make up her assignments by reading some book 1984. It had been alright, but Orwell had clearly spent too little time thinking of a hiding place for the camera. A painting? Please.

Emmer was offering her some water, and Copper snapped back to the present. Right, the food had almost run out, and here she was, daydreaming. At least Azulina was dead, and the rest of them could split her share.


	6. Chapter 6

All credit goes to Suzanne Collins, except some original characters. Best, BestBrass.

* * *

It was the fifteenth day. Two days earlier, Furr had sought out and taken his revenge on Raff. But whatever relief he had won through revenge was little celebrated by him and the careers. Everyone was beginning to fray from their constant vigilance and lack of proper food. They had joined in on chewing the leaves from the bushes and trees planted around the town. Their regular hunts had become sporadic, and they no longer organized them in shifts. The lack of gamemaker activity was the only thing that kept the careers from turning on each other, but a mutual agreement had silently come into place. Whatever was going to tip the scales would come, and when it did, the alliance would break. Everyone watched each other.

They were lucky, Copper realized. She and Emmer knew they wouldn't turn on each other regardless of the pressure. The two of them were scavenging odds and ends. Days ago, the careers had searched every building, looking for other tributes. Now, they were recovering their tracks, hunting for food rather than tributes. Luckily, the arena was equipped with some tinned food. It was poor in quality, consisting of tinned pears, jars of pickles and some packets of dried jerky, but it was enough. Copper looped and knotted a pillow case filled with tins and sealed packages. Emmer would be along any moment, now. There he was, swinging another sack as he approached. Off they went to the next building. Searching their way up the building, they were brought to the rooftop. The gamemakers, for all their hands-off design, seemed to put heavy emphasis on placing supplies on the roofs. Perhaps it was the easiest place to drop them, or it was the easiest way of capturing footage.

Copper heard a dull thud from somewhere in the building below. Felt a weight in her stomach and inwardly sharpened. She had been keeping watch at the foot of the stairs to the roof while Emmer rummaged, and she mounted the stairs, worried that she had missed something. Reaching the top of the stairs, Copper emerged onto the roof to find everything in order. Then a hand came slithering up over the side of the building, and the boy from 6 heaved himself up.

Emmer had his head in some crates, sorting through tins and pocketing fruit. Six was creeping up, his hand alighting on an empty bottle. Light, but hefty enough to do damage. Copper had stopped thinking, and when her thoughts began tracking again, she found that Six lay at Emmer's feet, red blossoming from his chest, and Emmer staring at her. She held her rifle to her shoulder, and now heard the echo that reverberated in her ears. The blast from her rifle, and the cannon that followed. Neither sibling spoke. They shouldered their sacks and made their way to the second den they were making.

They had decided to stock up a couple of different hiding places for when the career alliance dissolved. It would be foolish to assume that the other careers weren't doing the same. They had decided that Copper would hole up in a den in the northern sector, and Emmer would take the southern, so they could avoid each other. For now, they would remain close. Having stocked both dens, they retrieved the meagre supplies Six had collected and returned to the career den. The careers had lost their discipline, lost their sense of time, and the non-careers in the pack were beginning to lose their sense of fear for the careers, now that they were spending so much time with them, seeing their mortality. Everyone felt fragile from the rationing.

Furr had spent the past couple of days not eating, and had been fiddling with his weapons for hours. He had been on fire with revenge, had flushed the girl from Eight out and had killed her in retaliation for Azulina. That evening, his stomach had finally caught up with him, and he had gone through several tins of soup and dry rolls he had lifted off of the girl from Eight. His self-appointed reward. He had had an awkward moment where he vacillated on whether to attempt sharing the small meal with so many others. The other careers had their rationed portions, however, and were cheerful in congratulating him on achieving yet another kill. He was now the career who had made the most kills while actually hunting, rather than reacting. Regardless of who was eating the bounty, the kill had revitalized the group. Perhaps the Games would revert back on track, and they would receive sponsored gifts, or arena challenges would come. Perhaps they would meet their respective fates sooner rather than later. At least now the Games could begin anew.

The next day began and the careers, invigorated by the recent deaths of two of Azulina's killers, followed by a sponsored gift, set out. It came that Copper would meet the opportunity to heed Lyme's advice of surprising the audience with a previously underrated skill. The girl from nine was sixteen, shrewd and a formidable opponent. They had split up, and with the new energy, had split everyone up from their district partners. Planning for the dissolution of the career pack was no longer an acceptable practice. Copper was with Furr, as she was deemed weak enough to need Furr's protection, while Zither partnered with Indigo, who was silently viewed as relatively useless. With the other pairs off prowling their respective buildings, the two settled into a rhythm of clearing rooms. They no longer pocketed found food. They were hunting much bigger prey.

The girl from nine had somehow concealed herself well enough that Furr hadn't seen her when he checked the room. As Copper passed by, Nine had leapt, bringing a pan down on Copper's head. Her helmet had deflected it to her shoulders, and while she was uninjured, Nine was bigger and heavier than Copper. Copper dropped with Nine on top of her. Furr brought his pistol up and all three froze when they heard the harmless click. Nine launched herself at Furr, who managed to deflect her blow, and follow up with a fist of his own. Copper shot forward, unfeeling of her sore shoulder and back. Hooking one of the daggers from her vest, she wheeled and threw.

As always, it wasn't as smooth as Clove would have thrown it, but Clove had an eye for calculating rotations and achieving a solid stick. Copper didn't risk a revolving throw, and did an arcing one, instead, lodging the blade in Nine's neck. She followed it up with another knife, catching Nine's shirt to the wall, keeping the knife in her neck stable. Copper approached, more calmly than she would have thought, and re-lodged the knife. It had severed an artery in Nine's neck, and if she didn't want to spray the whole hallway, she'd have to give it a new path. There, the blood would flow down Nine's throat, and quicken the onset of death. Nine looked at them with the clarity of mortality. Her lips parted, as if she would impart some final words, and instead blood, which had filled whatever space lay inside her, made rivulets over her lips. Copper and Furr stood for an awkward moment once Nine had slid down the wall. The cannon fired.

"Neat," Furr managed, "the way you contained the blood." Copper found herself lacking in sadness. In pride, as well. She didn't feel much of anything, really. She felt as neutral a feeling as she'd ever felt. If she had more sleep, perhaps she'd have been horrified at her own dispassionate state. If she had more food, she might have had the stomach to care about her lack of empathy.

Back at the career den, Copper did not need to deviate in her mannerisms. The other careers had become accustomed to her stoicism, shared with Emmer. Furr resumed his relaxed, battle-eager state, and chucked his gun away. Upon inspection, they found that the hammer had somehow broken, and would be more trouble repairing than it was worth.

From there, it seemed to the tributes that time took on an altered manner of passage. Days passed without delay, and though they were quickly losing weight, it seemed that the gamekeepers were on some sort of hiatus, and the tributes would simply need to heed their lead. They had earlier thought the Games would pick up, and instead it seemed they were misled. Their lead came on the morning of the twentieth day in the arena. By this point, there were nine left in the arena when the gamekeepers sent the airstrikes. The careers were sleeping, taking advantage of the warm, overcast day. They heard the drone of something in the air. Then they felt, rather than heard, the earth jarring them to alertness, bringing plaster and dust raining from the ceiling. Copper's mind flashed to one of her tutor's assignments. Finch had treasured the books she cared for, and Copper had been mentally perusing what clues she could draw from her tutor's books. The image of loud, clunky planes, dropping bombs stood out to her. They would leave wreckage, fire, and misery in their wake, judging by the photos, preserved within the volume of the books. With the first couple of bombs, Copper jerked awake, and clutched at her helmet strap, cinching it. She'd need her helmet today.

She grabbed Emmer's wrist and hauled him to his feet. Unwilling to wait on the others, she paused long enough to give Martial a kick to wake him up on their way out before thundering down the stairs. With any luck, the others would be killed in the blitz and they'd be down in numbers. Copper was leading Emmer to the street before her memory flashed and she abruptly changed direction, dragging Emmer away from the door, deeper into the building's center. Just in time, because as the others were crashing downstairs, towards the street, a bomb dropped. Copper and Emmer had rounded a corner in the building, and she forced them to the kitchen, filled with a fireplace, stone counter tops and sturdy wooden furniture. They huddled under a table which they pushed between the inner counter top and the kitchen's island counter. The siblings listened as the careers shouted, tramping all around while the drone emanated from what seemed to be every direction. And then it stopped. It had seemed like hours, but had likely taken only a few minutes. An eerie silence filled the void.

Copper and Emmer went out the kitchen's door into the back street. It was undamaged, but the air held a singed quality, and smoke rose in several places. They circled around the building to the door they'd almost left from for fear of collapse. A crater marred the street, cobbles lying everywhere, windows blown out and doors shattered. Picking their way back to the door, they came face to face with the other careers.

"How did you survive out there?" Indigo had demanded, assuming they'd been in the street for the blitz. His face had been cut by flying glass.

"If you watch them come down, you can avoid them," Copper lied. She had meant it as a joke, really, but found that the others were looking at her with a new-found respect. Perhaps her usual stoic face, coupled with her recent flat affect, had made her seem more capable and aloof. They had no idea she was akin to a goose without its leader, flying in every which way, scraping through by the skin of her teeth. Best not let them in on that one.

Their den was surprisingly undamaged, but they all agreed to move a floor down. No one knew if the move would potentially protect them from a dropped bomb, or if it would add to their certainty of death, to be interred beneath an extra layer of the building. If they lived, it would have been the right choice and if they died, no one could tell them they'd been wrong. Atop the roof, they found that the whole arena seemed to be within the target of the bombs, so it was purely arbitrary to move or stay. Later, that evening, a cannon went off, and a hovercraft was seen picking through debris with its claw. It took a lot of maneuvering for the claw to obtain the tribute, but it eventually did and withdrew. That night, they saw it was the girl from twelve who had died. It was now down to the final eight, with five of the six careers left.

It was odd, because it was typical for the career pack to break when tributes were whittled to eight left, yet they stayed intact. It was in part due to the slow pace of this year's Games. Copper didn't have the energy to up and leave, if she were honest with herself. By the twentieth day of most Games, there were usually between two and four tributes left, and there were still eight. The career pack settled in again, this time in a daze after the shelling, willing to let the gamekeepers dictate the next event. And they did.

Two days after Twelve's death on day twenty, another blitz came. Copper had been returning from scavenging for more tins when it struck, and she ducked into a doorway a street away from making it back to their building. A shell struck somewhere very close, and Copper suddenly wondered where Emmer was. They hadn't heard a cannon for Twelve, because of the explosions. They only held cannons for after the bloodbaths, but after that, they sounded with each death as they occurred. Twelve's cannon had been completely obscured by the bombs. And she didn't have Emmer. Steeling herself, Copper double checked her helmet strap and stole out of the building she had taken shelter in.

After her initial maddening panic, Copper found that the outdoors were no more chaotic than the indoors. Pick a destination, and hope you made it in one piece. She saw their building at the other end of the block. She took off, slinging her rifle over her back. A shell hit, and she was thrown forward. Rolling, she was up and running again, feeling grateful that she had just vacated her shelter, which now smoldered. She called out for Emmer, knowing it was useless in the thundering of the blitz. Planes flew overhead, thick in the overcast sky. Was that him? She called out again, saw a shell fall from a passing plane. The figure turned. It wasn't Emmer. Where was he? Then the shell hit the cobbled street and Indigo was left in a crater. The hovercraft would need to spend time picking bits up, just like Roxen, the girl from Eleven who dropped her ball those weeks ago. Copper had been far enough away that she was temporarily blinded by the intensity of the bomb, but otherwise unhurt. Later, Copper would often wonder whether Indigo would have died from an airstrike anyway, or if he had heeded her ill-given advice about trying to dodge them. Regardless, she was not yet out of danger, but something kept everyone from fleeing. The airstrikes kept coming.

And still the pack did not break, despite the pack being the final tributes. There was no one else. Everyone was in a daze. Copper would often feel a faint sense of derision for the gamemakers. If the airstrikes were supposed to unravel them, it wasn't working. On the contrary, the airstrikes, having followed such long periods of dull inaction, became almost routine. There was a sense of carrying on with simple existing. Airstrikes continued to rain down, with no apparent change in the pack's attitude. And then the game changed. Rhymer was nearby when a shell hit. The airstrikes had become more frequent, and now, on the twenty-seventh day in the arena, the bomb was replaced with incendiary material, rather than the more contained explosives of earlier. This time everyone heard her cannon, because it took Rhymer more time to burn, and the blitz was over by the time her cannon rang.

The suffering Rhymer had gone through seemed to wake everyone to their senses. There was no one else left. No other tributes outside their pack. What had held them together, no one knew for sure, but whatever it was was no more. After this realization, the remaining tributes scattered, abandoning their places from around Rhymer's short vigil. By earlier agreement, Emmer and Copper took off in different directions, hoping the other would make it home; Furr and Zither went together, Martial in yet another direction. Brannock, Rhymer's District 7 partner, stayed a little while longer. They may have made a record. Copper imagined interviews with the analyst Lartius Baxol, who would discuss how this pack had lasted longer from formation to breaking point than any other career pack. Regardless of causes, it was over now. The final seven remained.

Two days later, on Day 29 in the arena, Copper was settled into her den in the northern sector. She was napping, and preferred to scavenge at night. The cannon went off, and that evening she would see that Brannock had died in another airstrike. She was a little fuller with food and sleep, and had the energy to be sorry to see it. Martial died the next day, 30 days into the arena, likely from one of the District 1 tributes. Still, her lethargy remained, and she focused on making subtle checks on Emmer's southern sector den to make sure it hadn't been bombed out at night during her nightly prowls. During the day, she would eat, sleep, wash, mend, whatever she could do without leaving her den.

Food was increasingly difficult to find, and she knew everyone must be towards their limit. Copper couldn't afford to lose much more weight, and could already feel her muscles begin to dystrophy, her fat dissipate, leaving her vulnerable to bone breakage. Rains had come, and she siphoned it off, glad she didn't need to leave her concealment to drink. Water and sleep were her two biggest friends, and helped her preserve her health and strength. There were four left, now. Copper hadn't realized the significance of it until now, over thirty days into the arena, but it was down to District 1 with Furr and Zither, and herself and Emmer. Copper stretched, realizing she had no time to waste. If either Katona were to make it home, District 1 could not be permitted to outnumber District 2.


	7. Chapter 7

Some characters are original; all credit is due to Suzanne Collins. Best, Bestbrass.

There were four left. If Copper could take out either Furr or Zither, then Emmer's victory would be assured so long as he fought for it. It was Day 43 in the arena, making it one of the longest Hunger Games Copper had ever heard of. The previous longest one had been 42 days long, if she was remembering right, and that had been years ago, in the early days. Most years, the Games would last between two and three weeks, give or take a few days. Now, it was over six weeks in, with significant gaps between individual deaths. Surely people were bored by now. Goodness knew Capitol citizens had notoriously short attention spans, and would want some resolution. Copper would never understand how Capitol citizens saw the world, that they'd tattoo a fad on their face and enjoy whatever programs were offered up on television.

Copper had spent the past few days camped out on the rooftop of one of the buildings overlooking the center of the arena. The heavy raining had stayed, and Copper had been so continually soaked that she was far past shivering. She had made peace with her discomfort, and had draped her waterproof poncho over her rifle, opting to keep it dry. Finch's books flashed before Copper's eyes, and she remembered seeing the images of soldiers wading through water up to their necks, carrying only their rifles above their heads. Everything else was deemed worthy of being wet, it seemed. She had earlier seen Zither, at a distance, discarding her pistols after arguing with Furr. They had both tried to fire them, but found the rain had ruined some mechanism, and they were now useless. She was relieved that her rifle had been dry, as the one she had taken from Laurel had become soaked, left in another hiding place. It had leaked, and was now abandoned. By this point, they had all realized their grenades were of no use, as well.

Copper was patient. It was the thing she was consistently better and worse than Clove at; being either frustratingly patient or exceedingly impulsive. The rain had forced her into a state of wet patience. There was Emmer, walking with an awkward gait, in a hurry to leave the area he had come from. There was Furr, carrying one of Emmer's spears, looking smug. Copper's finger felt snug around the trigger, but she relaxed it. Not yet. He's too far, and she couldn't predict the bullet. Thunder crashed overhead, and Copper considered taking shelter. No. If she were to die by lightning, at least it would be fast. She was soaked through. Zither came.

She had appeared just after Furr, and after a brief consultation, the two sprang into action. Furr began checking the spear he had evidently won from Emmer, and Zither hefted a long dagger, taking off after Emmer's retreating back. It was now. Copper aimed. Waited. Each moment, she wanted to squeeze the trigger. But Emmer's gait was labored, and Zither took her time in following him, seemingly enjoying the process. She got closer. Closer. Tunnel vision took over, and Copper could see only the point off-center of Zither's chest. Now.

The rifle went off. The cannon following at almost the same time. Emmer looked up, searching for Copper. She was well-covered in a layer of sheets, turning her silhouette into a lump along the roofline, but they locked eyes. No time for that, now. Copper searched for Fur. There he was. He'd seen it, knew Zither was gone. Even with Emmer injured, he was now outnumbered, and Copper had a working firearm. He spun and took off. She had but moments to figure out a parting shot. He specialized in lances and hand-to-hand. He was right-handed. Right arm. Aim. Furr staggered, fell as Copper fired again. She had aimed for his head, but his fall saved his life. A moment later, he had scrambled behind the nearest building, gone. Emmer was gone, as well. It made sense. There were three, now, and neither sibling wanted a chance to mull things over. Copper withdrew to her den and planned her next roost.

It was the 46th day, and Copper had set out for another building. She had switched around the past few days, between roosting with a lookout over the center of town and a random street. She went to the second floor, edged the window open a touch, pulled up a table, and lay atop it, waiting. She was relieved to be spending the day out of the rain. If anything, she was comforted by the racket of the thunder, the droplets hitting the glass panes, and the smell of the rain. From her roost, she could see the ruined city, crumbling buildings that would fill with rainwater and smudge the paintings on the walls. Her eyes drew across the way. There was movement. There he was, creeping along in the rain, arms full of tins. Furr certainly looked bedraggled, wet in the rain. He held his arm awkwardly. He hadn't treated it very well, but then again, he had never visited the first aid station during training, and he was right-handed, anyway, so his left wouldn't be good for much. He disappeared from view. Copper took a moment. It was pouring outdoors, the rifle would quickly be ruined, leaving her with one shot and a blown position. She wrapped it in the poncho, and hid the rifle in a corner behind a bookcase. Checked her knife vest. It was best if she didn't come out of this. It would make life simpler.

She stole out into the rain, calculating how far he'd have gone. There. A knife in each hand, she matched his steps, although the rain drowned out even his steps. Should she go for his hamstring, disable him, or go straight to the kill? Direct kill, if she wanted to win. Her motive was different, now. She aimed for his leg and threw. As he fell to his knee, Copper was on him. She tore the knife out, trying to do as much damage to the muscle as possible. Dug into his arm again. His right arm spasmed and he cried out. His left shot out, and Copper found herself on her back, lying on the cobbles with rainwater flowing between them.

"You're all loyalty, aren't you?" Furr hissed, holding her own knife at her throat. "Always looking out for dear big brother." Copper blinked rain from her eyes. This was it, and she was determined to haunt him. She'd keep her eyes open, just as Laurel had done, and make him remember her, at least until Emmer finished him off. Why hadn't he done it, yet? He was struggling to control his right arm, which held a now shaking blade to her throat. "Where are you two camping out?" Furr asked.

"We split when Rhymer died." Copper answered truthfully. He grimaced.

"Then what was with your coordination with Zither?"

"Chance." Copper responded. There was no need for her to lie at this point. "I had a choice of targets and I picked." Also true. The rain splashed down on them. Furr began to shiver and he glanced around. He'd have to take the questioning elsewhere. He unbuckled her knife vest and slung it over his own shoulders. Dragged her to her feet and held her in a headlock, knife still at her throat. Copper would have thought it smarter to take the building nearest, because it would be as good as any, but then realized Furr likely didn't trust Emmer's whereabouts, and wanted more seclusion. He got the two of them all the way to a building several blocks away. Once in the hallway, Copper had assumed he'd take a break, maybe lock her in a closet and resume interrogating her. She hadn't expected his arm around her neck to tighten, his free hand to clap over her mouth and nose and hold it. She had several seconds of struggling in vain before she felt herself go slack.

Copper woke up in the dark. It took some time for her to confirm that she truly was awake, and then panic set in. Her grenades, as useless as they were, were gone. Her knives, the ammunition she'd stuffed into her pockets, all gone. She couldn't see a thing. Stretching out on the floor, she found the walls prevented a full stretch. She was somewhere quite small. Getting up, her vision took on a silvery black hue, felt fizzy, and she sank back to the floor. She should have expected the dizzyness. Trying again, she was able to stand, and felt her way around the tiny space. Found a door and its knob. Laughed at the irony of having called her own situation. Definitely a closet. Of course it was locked. The floor was solid, the walls solid, but what of the ceiling? Some of the ceilings had had slats, was it so in the closet? Bracing her hands against the two closer walls, she pushed and locked her upper body, raising her feet, bracing them beneath her hands. A couple more times, and she had reached the ceiling. Reached a hand up, felt around.

Footsteps, the lock turning and the door swung open. Blinded, Copper slipped and crashed to the floor. Furr stood above her, and it was all she could do to squint at him.

"Had a good nap?" He had calmed down since last they spoke, and had become quite cordial, choosing to ignore her climbing around the closet.

"I suppose so," she answered. Her eyes were adjusting, and she could see that his arm looked worse than ever. "Want me to look at that?" The audience would love that. Here, held captive and on the verge of being killed, she was still the girl next door, eager to please. He hesitated, and acquiesced, stepping back and holding the door open for her. Still squinting, she stepped out and found herself in the den that must have been where he and Zither had stayed. Just Furr, now, with a tub collecting rainwater at the window and tins stacked by another wall. He had hauled most of the supplies from the former career pack den, and gestured to the box filled with first aid supplies. He sat, knife in hand, and she sat next to him. She pulled a scalpel and felt his left hand jerk her head by her braid and found his knife pressed against her throat. Running short of patience, she shook him off. "It's going to hurt," she warned, holding the scalpel. She would have to cut away bits where it had been infected. He waved it off, looking slightly sheepish.

Some rubbing alcohol, and then slicing at the infection. Furr's face had broken into a freely flowing sweat, and his eyes were streaming, but he refused to acknowledge that he was feeling anything. Allthewhile Copper wondered what she was doing. She was helping the very person who was bent on killing both her and her brother. But a sense of hope had sparked, and Copper clung to it. If she helped him, he might not fight quite as hard; his hand might be stayed with guilt or gratitude or some other human emotion. Whatever it was, if it gave him the hesitation to offer either one of them a chance to escape the arena, she was willing to do it. She had sown a seed, and hoped it would grow.

What was she thinking? How fit was she, mentally, to try to predict the actions of others? Specifically, a career who had allowed himself to fall for another tribute during the games, become erratic, and who was just as desperate to win as the other two left. Things were making either a lot of sense or no sense at all these days, and she had found herself to be daydreaming more than usual. Memories flooded her around every corner when she was determined to focus, and when she contemplated her token with the intention of inviting memories, her mind went blank altogether. She was still shaken by the recent memory of Valora, the plucky twelve-year-old girl from Five. They had been on another lunch break during training, and Valora had sidled up to the District 2 tributes again, chattering as usual. The other careers had smirked at the diminutive figure and Emmer focused on shoveling food, ignoring the little girl's twittering.

"People from Two are the people who become Peacekeepers, right?" she had asked. Copper and Emmer had nodded. For someone old enough to be entered in the Games, she seemed quite naive. "When I was reaped, one of them came in after my family left. He gave me a chocolate, because I was crying." This was odd. Copper and Emmer had listened in earnest, then. "He said that he'd make sure my brother wouldn't be bullied in school, anymore. I cried even harder, because favoritism only makes you get bullied more, but he said no one would ever realize. Just like that, he gave me a chocolate. It goes to show you never can tell with Peacekeepers. People are full of surprises."

What had she been thinking of before, that this inane memory would surface? That girl was long dead now, since the beginning of the Games. How had she even come to think about her? Copper shook her head in an attempt to focus, again. Valora, for all of her twittering, seemed to have provided a lot of relevant stories from her life. Had she been trying to tell Copper something? It was ridiculous; no twelve year old girl from another district, slated to be murdered days later, would take the time to give a rival deep, cryptic messages about discontent. Even if she were, it wasn't like Copper's odds were the best. Perhaps her message would have been to Emmer, though. He was a favorite to win, and likely still was. Still, whatever the original intention, the lesson Copper took from Valora's story with the chocolate was that you can't predict what others will do. Yet here, Copper was still trying, by stitching up the arm of the boy who would likely use it to kill her. Then try the same with her brother.

Boys were oddly squeamish, Copper thought. Her brothers were afraid of needles, and here, Furr refused to even look at it. She could do it. Kill him here. His face was turned away, and his knife was too far to stop her from doing the deed. Which would leave her and Emmer, and she couldn't allow that. If she simply let Emmer win, he would leave the arena with more danger than he came in with, for he would be the victor from her defiance. If she were to leave, having killed her own brother, she would have the Capitol's favor, but the rest of her family and District 2 to answer to. She tied off the last stitch and unrolled some gauze.

"I'd have thought you two would have known where the other would have camped." Furr spoke up. "We wondered what took the pair of you so long when you were out." A fair and accurate assumption.

"We split up," she lied. "so we wouldn't have to make a choice once the alliance broke." Reasonable enough.

"But you have an idea of where he is," Furr pushed. Of course she did.

"You think I'd tell you if I did?" Copper snorted, tucking the gauze in place.

"I never thought you'd dress my arm, but you're full of surprises." Furr shot back. His arm now taken care of, he spun, slashed the knife along Copper's side. "Try not to climb the walls," he commented, and locked her to him with surprising quickness. There wasn't much she could do, with her arms pinned, and besides he was about twice her size. He had flung her into the closet and locked the door before she could think of anything to say. There was a scraping sound of a chair being dragged, and the door rattled slightly as he wedged the chair against the door, blocking any attempt of kicking it out. She had found the decorative keyhole and saw the back of the chair come into view before the light was blocked out, leaving her in darkness again.

There was no sense of time, but Copper listened, and heard Furr take a nap, heard his deep breathing, and heard him get up, make more noises and leave, his footsteps fading. Gone to hunt for Emmer. Copper tried shimmying up the closet again, her hands slippery with her own blood, found the ceiling had some give to it. Were there any slats like in the other buildings? She froze when she found it. Yes. It was now or never. Furr was gone, wouldn't hear her escape, and was out trying to find Emmer. She was in a prime position to finish what she had started. She struck the slat with her elbow several times to loosen it and was able to push it up and slide it aside. Perfect. She held her breath, feeling the dust in the crawlspace billowing up. She crawled several feet forward, hoping to open a slot in the room next door.

Dropping down, she retraced her steps to Furr's den, grabbed some tins and stole away. He had been smart to hide any weapons from her, and she was short of time to look for them. Exiting the building, she became disoriented. To her memory, she had been dragged to a building a couple of blocks from where Furr had bested her, and now she was in a far section of the arena. After suffocating her, Furr must have taken her to this section to further inconvenience her should she escape. She was certainly inconvenienced. She ducked into a side alley to eat the food she'd stolen before setting off, leaving the rest of the tins behind. She had taken all of the food and dumped his tub of water. They were even in inconveniencing each other. The slash was shallow, but it was bleeding quite a bit. She took off at a jog, and arrived feeling winded. It was the building she'd roosted in the day before, and hopefully her rifle and ammunition was still there. It was. Ammunition slung across her body, rifle loaded and at the ready, she headed to the southern section. She was out of options, and if it came down between the siblings, so be it.

She was in a side alley, waiting for him. The rain had started again, and was soaking everything. There he was. Emmer was returning to his den, his gait smoother, but still jilted by whatever injury he'd sustained from Furr and Zither. Now, to wait for Furr. She was just considering which alleyway she'd settle in to wait when she heard him.

"Emmer!" Fur had called out. He was carrying his spear, and wearing Copper's vest. "I've been looking for you!" Emmer turned from the doorway.

"You, too." Emmer replied smoothly. He held a bayonet in his hand. From where he'd salvaged it, Copper didn't know. Emmer was eyeing Furr, twirling his bayonet in his fingers. "Where'd you get the knives?" Furr grinned.

"Picked them up with a good brass." He thought he was being clever, playing on Copper's name as if they'd never heard that one before. "Have you seen your sister, lately?" For all of his limping earlier, Emmer was fast. Furr had approached and they were a few meters apart when Emmer made his move. The bayonet and spear clashed, and they were locked into hand-to-hand struggle. Emmer was relatively immobile from an injury that seemed to originate from one of his legs, and Furr was impeded by his arm. Copper braced her rifle against the wall of the alley. They weren't in a static position, and she didn't want to risk a chancy shot. And then Furr's spear clattered on the cobbles. Dropping her riffle, the ammunition, she lurched forward. What a sight the three of them must have made for the Capitol. She was holding her insides in from her gash on her right side, Emmer was compensating for his leg and Furr was trying to take on a fight with one arm. What a fight.

Copper came up from behind Furr. Grabbed a knife from his vest, plunged it into his neck. He gave a grunt and elbowed her. She landed and looked up. He was staggering away, holding the knife in place with both hands. A last ditch attempt as life.

"Copper," Emmer's voice was raspy. She turned to see him sink to the ground, the bayonet protruding from between his ribs. Crawled to his side. He had started to shiver.

"No." Was all she could say. Rain poured down her face, filled her hair. She wiped her nose.

"Hey, Brass," Emmer rasped. The rain was coming down harder now, but neither sibling paid any heed. "remember what we promised."

"No." Her voice broke, and she put her hands around the bayonet, staunching the blood. Was there a lung puncture? He'd be exceedingly lucky if it had missed. It seemed luck didn't run in the Katona family.

"Copper … I," He was still shivering. "I … I …" His voice faltered. The cannon sounded. It took her some time to realize that he had stopped shivering, and the shaking was coming from her. A wet cough from somewhere behind her. Her world was in slow motion. Furr had gotten several meters away. She stood, caught up to him. She was surprised at the gentleness of her own touch. The knife was in his neck. Copper grasped it. His hands groped at her wrist. She had to pry, pulling from his hands. One last cannon.

Copper looked down at her hands, and noticed her side. She had used her right hand to hold her cut in place, and had then used it to pull the knife out of Furr. The lower part of her gash was slipping, and she had to push it back into place and hold her arm over it. She sank down next to Emmer. He had always been one of the giants of the family, towering at over six feet tall. Now he was emaciated, crumpled, eyes staring. The scrape of the claw as it collected Furr's body. Still, she felt frozen to the stonework of the street. There weren't many thoughts, but it occurred to her that she should have had more thoughts than this. More emotions. A voice spoke, and Copper was vaguely aware of it, half listening.

"Ladies and gentlemen!" She had her hand against Emmer's cheek, hollow from hunger. When she moved it, she freed water that had collected between his face and her hand. "The winner of the 72nd Annual Hunger Games!" This would be the moment, traditionally, when the victor would stand and wave, accept their new status. A pause. What was the world waiting for? Several moments later, she realized it was her. She was supposed to stand and accept her new life as a victor, because she was the last one. There could only be one.


	8. Chapter 8

I have changed this story's status from Complete to Incomplete. I originally intended on ending this story with Chapter 7, but a friend of mine convinced me otherwise, saying the end of Copper's Games aren't the end of her, and I should figure out if she would make it through the Victor's Purge and Revolution. The next several chapters, therefore, will be a bit longer, for everything I need to cover.

All credit goes to Suzanne Collins, except for some original characters. Best, BetaBrass.

* * *

The 72nd Annual Hunger Games had lasted 47 days. It had lasted over a month and a half, and had set the record for both the longest lasting games, and for the earliest death. Notably, the girl from Eleven had dropped her token, a wooden ball, while waiting for the timer to reach zero, and set off her landmine. A state of emergency had been called in District Seven, the result of a "disastrous" series of landslides that had buried several towns. The Capitol had pulled almost every hovercraft from the rest of the districts to help in relief efforts. Then, District Two had been shaken with massive mine collapses, and the relief efforts had to be split between the two districts. The gamemakers, bereft of their hovercraft, since it had been claimed for relief aid, had had to improvise, and control the Games using older, out of date systems. For this reason, the Games had been absent of its usual muttations, arena challenges, and the killing was left to the tributes themselves. The Games, punctuated by the relief efforts in Districts Two and Seven, had all had to share airing time, leading to the Games being more drawn out. And it was all a lie.

Clove had been initially annoyed when the Capitol had begun to take time from the Games to air the disaster in Seven. What if the sponsors took pity on their tributes, and diverted money that might have otherwise been spent on her siblings? Not that anyone was being sponsored by the look of it. None of the tributes had received a single sponsor gift, career or otherwise. Cadfael had implied that the gamemakers couldn't send sponsored gifts, since they didn't have their hovercraft. He had alternatively implied that they wouldn't, as some kind of punishment for fellow Panem citizens' refusal to follow Capitol orders.

After her sister's surprise reaping, Clove had retreated up the mountain, again. She and Copper had clipped the only sunflower that had bloomed so far, so there weren't anymore bloomed flowers that she could cut in Copper's honor. She had settled for the next best option, which was a sunflower that was close to blooming. As she used her knife to cut it, she hoped it would bloom while in a vase of water. Clove had become angry again. She knew her aunt and uncle saw it, and had searched for a way to talk about it. The Katonas weren't known for sharing their feelings, however, and the guardians faltered in their attempts to draw Clove into conversation. She and Copper, despite having spent almost every moment since birth together, had never lacked for anything to say to each other, so her silence worried her guardians.

"Can't you be excused from the Capitol for even a day or two?" Aunt Amber had wheedled at Cadfael and Rye. "She's so quiet now, and she doesn't even bake anymore." But no amount of pleading would bring them to visit. They didn't want to jeopardize their precarious position with the president.

Clove would train in the mornings, see her tutor in the afternoons, take her shift at the quarries after that until dinner. Routine. After dinner, though, she would steal up the mountain and tend the patch of sunflowers her siblings had had to abandon. She didn't have the green thumb that Rye and Copper had had. Several of them had already been blown down by the wind, because she had forgotten to stake them. The snails were easy enough to find and throw to the far side of the stream some distance away. The slugs were another matter. She had eventually remembered that their slime reacted with copper, causing an electro-neural shock. Taking a spool of copper wire, she had wrapped each stem with a length of wire that she had coiled to create a sleeve at each base, hoping it would work.

It came time that the Capitol remembered that Copper had not been given time to receive a token from home, and they had sent word to the Katonas. Her aunt and uncle had started to go through their valuables, looking for something suitable. But for all of their wealth, it hadn't occurred to the Katonas to buy much jewelry upon obtaining their place as a victor's family. District Two's culture lent itself more to utilitarian goods, and the only splurge they made was when Flint Katona had bought Amber Pomeline their wedding rings, and then when his younger brother, Tinder, had done the same for Domitia Sterling a few years later. As it was, there was little that Flint and Amber could think of to offer their niece. Clove had disappeared to her bedroom that she shared with Copper. She had emerged with a lump of the obsidian the Katona siblings had collected after Rye's return as victor, and the brass chain that Copper had been given for their shared thirteenth birthday, just weeks before Strate's reaping. It had been in reference to a joke, because the chain was made of a brass alloy, used to make the Brasses, one of Panem's coins. The Simila, or Sim, was Panem's basic currency, and a brass was worth two sims. Aunt Amber had hypothesized that the reason brasses were sometimes called Coppers was because the civilization that had existed before Panem had never used brass in their currency, instead using copper. Somewhere along the line, the population's collective memory still associated copper with money, and nicknamed brasses with coppers. It was sometimes simpler to say, with fewer 's's.

Clove had drilled a hole into the edge of the obsidian herself, strung it through, and even buffed the rock a little, to make sure it wouldn't be sharp enough to be construed as a weapon. She had watched the interview with Caesar Flickerman. Had seen him drawing out the dilemma that faced the siblings, and the way he had dramatized the doom that they faced. She felt her temperature grow hotter as she watched the Capitol citizens chuckle at her sister, who had been dressed in a silly yellow and white dress. It might had been designed to make Copper look more mature, with a Spartan warrior theme, but it served only to make her look like a child who had been invited to an adult's game for laughs. She listened as Caesar Flickerman and that Lartius Baxol had sat around, musing over the chances different tributes had. What were the odds for or against their favor? She had listened as the two men, with their garish styles and overdone mannerisms, had exclaimed their excitement at having the prospect of watching siblings kill each other. Would they do it? She had incriminated herself for allowing Copper to get the jump on her in volunteering. Stupid of her, since Clove had consistently received higher marks than Copper in their training.

The audience had leaped with excitement at the fate of Roxen, the girl from Eleven, who had dropped her token and died before the countdown ended. Then the Games had started. The siblings were immediately pegged as contenders for the final eight, because it was so clear they could work together. The boy from One seemed alright, although not the sharpest career seen. The girl had certainly gained popularity for her beauty, and that she had killed the most at the bloodbath added to her favor. Frankly, Clove thought she looked like a narcissistic girl who had been lucky enough to stumble on the winning weapons first.

The cameras had focused on Laurel, the girl from Three, since she was clearly sharp, and had assembled the rifle she'd pilfered without difficulty. They had edited it so that it looked like a race between Laurel and Copper, though they certainly weren't racing to construct the rifles. Then they had edited her encounter with the career pack with music of impending trouble. Then, shots of Laurel's rifle's view. Where the cameras were placed, Clove couldn't see from the screen, but it must have been near the scope, because the audience could from see the rifle's perspective as Laurel aimed at Emmer's face. She must have pulled the trigger wrong, or shifted, so her aim was thrown off, because the camera was able to catch the bullet's path through his arm.

Clove had stopped breathing, and been glued to the screen, drinking everything in, until they showed Copper and the other boy laying Emmer onto the couch in their den. She had just lulled herself into a sense of security when the cameras went to the boy from Eight as he spied on the three. She watched as he mounted the stairs to the roof, and coughed loud enough to draw the one on watch. As he cracked a bottle on his head and laid in wait for Copper. Don't be stupid, Clove had been screaming at the screen, alone in the living room. Don't go up, Clove had shouted. But she had, and that was it. In a trance, Clove had watched as the cameras focused on Copper's face as she ran out of air. The silvery moonbeams had struck Copper's eyes at an angle, and lit them up, showing a view of her contracting pupils, her face going a pale grey-blue color. Cut to a shot of Emmer, coming up the stairs in time to see what was happening. His popularity had ballooned, as they played and replayed the moment. Emmer had looked to be the size of an animal, scooping Eight up with seemingly no effort, and tossing him over the ledge of the roof. Cut to an angle from below, showing his face illuminated by the moon, and in partial darkness. It was a fearsome shot, and Lartius Baxol had started to advise sponsors that Emmer was a tribute with the odds in his favor.

While relieved with the result at the end of that episode, she had sworn off the Hunger Games. It was too much of a rollercoaster, and Clove was still to angry to watch the Games as if it were any other year. She would listen to updates from her aunt and uncle, they were alive, thirteen left. They were alive, twelve left. As time stretched by, Clove was almost able to pretend that nothing was wrong. Copper and Emmer were just off on one of their survival trainings, practicing at being in the bush, being hungry, dehydrated, and such. Her trainings were straightforward, and she enjoyed the companionship with the other trainees. Her tutor was just as dry as ever, but it was her quarry shifts she would have skipped if she were to have had a choice. She shared the early evening shift with the other kids her age, both career trainee and not. The others had been jealous of the twins, for their wealth and fame. After Strate had come in second, and especially when Emmer and Copper had been reaped, they had averted their gazes for a time. The day after the episode when Emmer had been shot, Clove's workmates had stepped up, offered their gestures of community, and offered to share their water. She had her own water, but it was the gesture that was being offered, and it had softened her towards them.

She would train, study, work, and retreat up the mountain. Cadfael and Rye had returned home in anticipation of the Final Eight interviews, and had rejoined their old workmates at the quarries, in part for the cameras and in part to catch up. The sunflowers were beginning to bloom in full, now, and would follow the sun in its arc across the sky. It was a shock to her carefully created routine, then, when airtime was taken from the Hunger Games and given to relief efforts to the landslides that had happened in District Seven. The aerial footage of the sites showed the debris of trees, stumps, mud and bits of buildings. Clove had tuned in for the news, and had seen Flint shaking his head.

"That debris, there," he pointed to certain bits on screen, "its burnt." He didn't need to further explain himself. Explosives had been used, and that the Capitol was so eager in saying it was caused by excess rain was telling. The landslide wasn't an accident. It was just days later when Clove arrived with her workmates at the quarry to find that it had collapsed under a rockfall. Rains had come to District 2, and soaked everything, foreshadowing a slick and muddy time. She and the evening workshift quarriers, made up mostly of fifteen-year-olds, sixteen-year-olds and their supervisors, had worked through the night to excavate their friends and family. Hovercraft, cameras and shovels arrived. Why the Capitol had sent shovels was a mystery, because they were useless against the debris that ranged from fist-sized rocks to small and large boulders. Their heavy machinery had been buried, leaving only their hands to salvage what they could.

It had finally set in for Clove that she was alone when she and her workmates had been made to go home for sleep. She had left her parents for training in the kitchen, as they finished their breakfast before they left for the quarry. Her brothers left with her, doing up their quarry jumpsuits on their way to the quarry. That afternoon, she had arrived at the quarry, helped with the efforts of struggling to loosen the rocks enough to lift them up and away. She had tried not to think back to when she and Copper were eight, when they dug through the rubble to find their parents, killed in the rockfall after Cadfael's misdemeanor. Copper had found their father, and soon a multitude of hands were reaching in, lifting him up. It was dawn the next day when they had found their mother. Now, Clove sat at home, not knowing if she even wanted to sleep. Her aunt and uncle, her brothers, were all on shift when the quarry collapsed, leaving the same telltale singed rocks that denoted explosives. Despite the rain, her gut clenched hot inside, fanning her fury.

* * *

Lyme had been the first familiar face Copper had seen after leaving the arena. She had shown the first sign of affection by hugging her, whispering into Copper's ear. The information had been fragmented, because Lyme would only acknowledge that anything was wrong while imparting the story.

District Seven had had a riot. It was rumored that it was really just a protest over the Capitol's increased orders of logging. They had ordered that certain areas be logged, and were giving Seven no allocation for replanting. Seven had put a halt on all logging until the Capitol gave them the funding to replant the plots to restabilize the slopes. In response, the Capitol was rumored to have detonated small explosions, setting off the landslides. The official story was that, after a rainstorm, the saturated area had slid and covered the areas. Everyone knew that Seven was rarely without a rainy day, so it wasn't out of the question that a landslide would occur.

District Two had not had a riot. They hadn't had a riot in over a quarter of a century, and was nowhere near having one, now. But they had had dissenters. Down in the mines, and out at the quarries, beyond the Capitol's sensitive hearing, there had been whispers of expanding their network. No one knew what had truly happened, but either someone had ratted them out, or the Capitol was simply cleaning house for the sake of thoroughness. The tragic rock fall at the two main quarries in District Two had killed a confirmed forty people, but the estimates were higher, hovering at around ninety people more than the confirmed forty, whose bodies weren't accounted for. The quarry's base had been buried deep, and most of the skilled quarriers had died in the rockfall, so the effort of rescue had changed to that of recovery.

Copper had tried to ask Lyme if her parents were alright, since they both worked the quarries. She hadn't answered. Her brothers and sister had all been in Two, to participate in the hometown interviews of the final Eight. The three of them worked the quarries, though Cadfael and Rye were more honorary guests at the quarry than actual workers. She had asked about them, but Lyme had told her to shut up and eat. Via, the District Two escort, had been hands-off before the Games, and had stepped up when she had been given a victor to work with. She had batted her purple eyelashes and given Copper the first genial hug since her return from the arena. She thought Via might give her some heartwarming advice, but then she gave her usual stream of consciousness.

"Its wonderful to work with District Two, you're always all so professional. Before you lot, I was stuck with Five, can you image how mundane that was? Well, chop chop, its time to begin your treatment." Copper had some residual weakness in her side, and needed treatments to stimulate the healing of her muscles and skin in her side. The gamemakers had realized the end was imminent a little late, and it hadn't arrived until a couple of hours after the official end of the games. She hadn't noticed, because by that time she was so empty she might as well have sat there two minutes before being urged to mount the ladder.

Eventually, the voice of a gamemaker had jostled her from her reverie, and she remembered to take Emmer's token. Slipping it over her head, she froze to the ladder and unfroze once inside. By the time they had her on the operating table, she had had an open wound for nearly a day, and while they had worked magic, her recovery period was slower than it would have been. She had been unable to walk, partly from exhaustion taking over, partly from the muscles on her right side being cut and sewn back together, and partly because she couldn't imagine why she should need to walk. The lack of information made it pretty clear her family was dead, and all Via would say is that it was good that Copper hadn't had any sponsors to thank, because Copper looked like a wooden fish. She couldn't avoid what was going to happen, but she couldn't bring herself to care, either.

"Copper," Lyme had come to her, a stern look. "You're not out of this, yet. You need to prepare for your viewing and interview. For Clove." It was the first time anyone had mentioned a clue as to her family's welfare. It got her attention, and Copper's face animated with hunger for more news. "Just Clove, so far." Lyme had said. So far. But the rockfall had happened early in the fourth week of the arena, which meant any survivors would have to survive through the fourth, fifth, sixth and the better part of the seventh week, plus the several days after Copper had been out of the arena. It left the simple fact that the twins only had one another at this point.

Copper's team diminished her scars, clipped her split ends, cleared her complexion, reshaped her nails, cleaned and brightened her teeth. They chattered on in an attempt to keep her in the present. Even they had noticed that their victor was no longer quite as capable of maintaining a thought or conversation as she had been before. Maybe she had been an eager to please, awkward girl-next-door before. She had never seen herself that way, really, but one could always see things better in hindsight.

Ligna handed Copper her dress. It was the dress she'd worn on the train for her arrival in the Capitol. What game Ligna and Lyme were playing, Copper didn't have the energy to figure out. Still in a daze, Copper allowed herself to be made up, her hair styled and her make up done to make her look slightly less deadpan. All too soon, she was being greeted on stage by Caesar Flickerman's white smile, his smooth handshake, his gracious manners. It was time to watch the special capstone episode to wrap up the 72nd Hunger Games.

It started out with coverage of the District Seven landslides, of the devastation. Then switched to the District Two quarry collapses, of people using their hands to try to move boulders the size of half a train car. They included static noise to make it feel like the footage had been hard to come by. Then the reapings, the volunteers, Charm Inchcape's smiling face as she volunteered by pre-arrangement. The music preluding the train's troubling future. Footage of the newsreels, hearing of her death. The arrival of the maverick replacement, the diminutive girl who, regardless of career training, could never win. The scores, flashes of some of the interview highlights. The music focused in as they allowed Furr, Zither, Copper and Emmer their full interviews. Furr, as he proclaimed his love for Panem, Zither's beauty, and her dedication to training. Copper, where the music gave an eerie quality, showing her as the young, naive diamond in the rough, the tragedy of not comprehending her doomed fate. Emmer, with his effective one line. "There can only be one." was played with an echo, and served as a segway for the program. The audience had wept at the scene.

Roxen, the girl from Eleven, as she fiddled with her token, as it slipped, and as the two tributes next to her clung to their platforms to avoid being blown off. The Games began with the traditionally dramatic, intense music and shots of different tributes running. They paid special attention to Emmer defending Copper from the boy from Six, and Copper tackling Emmer against the grenade's blast.

From there, they showed the different alliances and individual tributes setting up places to sleep. Copper noticed the music they played was cheery, filled with camaraderie, which almost brought an ironic smile to her face, since almost everyone on screen was going to die a terrible death. They gave screentime to Laurel and Copper, flashing between the two of them as they constructed their rifles. They had to edit Copper's a lot to make it smoother, because otherwise it would be clear she had no real idea of what she was doing. Laurel had been able to snap hers together with very little figuring. She had been the tribute who had played with her token all through their training. It had been some sort of tattered cube with a maze on each side, and bars on the inside. She would drag the bars here and there, solving and resolving the puzzle with dexterous hands. She had had a mind for puzzles.

Then came the career pack's first night of hunting. The sound effects enhanced the anxiety in the crowd as Laurel cocked her rifle, aimed, and fired, showed Emmer falling to his knees, hit the ground and lose consciousness. Showed Copper herself as she stood over him, looking for Laurel, who refocused on Copper's face, followed it as she shifted positions. When Copper had knelt, Laurel had tensed, ready to shoot, and missed when Copper had hit the ground. The bullet would have hit Copper somewhere in the chest, but then she was standing, and the cameras zoomed in on Copper as she raised the rifle and pulled the trigger. She felt sick, watching it all over again, listening to the music that made it seem like fiction and gave the audience the idea that Copper had pulled the trigger as cool as she pleased. Cut to Laurel being clipped in the head, slumping and going in and out of consciousness. Cut to Copper kicking the door in. A sort of choral sound took over as Copper approached, and the screen split to both girl's faces and climaxed with the knife. Cut to the careers continuing on their hunt, then to the career den, where Brannock had taken watch. Talon, the boy from Eight, as he lured Brannock to the roof. As he lay in wait for Copper when she came looking.

She had checked out, and knew that when the cameras showed her face in the corner of the screen, it was clear she wasn't really watching the show. She was only vaguely aware of the scene until Emmer arrived and tossed the smaller boy like he was a small cat. They used the shot of one of the cameras from below, showing his silhouette, and reused the choral chanting.

They spent some time showing Furr and Azulina, the careers of One and Four, as they became ever more friendly. It was clear that Azulina had mildly enjoyed Furr's company, but it was equally clear he truly began to care for her. The audience swooned at their romance. It wasn't very common, but a mild crush did occasionally happen. They had cut out the scenes where Azulina had given Furr some of her food, where Furr had kissed Azulina. The others in the career pack had ignored it for the most part, but it was not secret, and Copper was fascinated that the Capitol had decided to leave the seriousness of Furr's feelings out.

Their friendship was made all the more clear, however, when they were out, and Azulina was stabbed. Furr had become frantic, and had carried Azulina all the way back to the center of the arena. She had told him not to bother, she was bleeding too much. He had told her to shut up, that Copper would stitch it up. The audience was quiet, but there were audible sniffs and whispered offerings of tissues to one another. Azulina had received some dignified, sad music and a camera pan up from her body, surrounded by teammates, up to the unreal moon.

The music swelled with vengeance, and showed an efficient montage of Furr killing Raff in retaliation for Azulina, of Copper chipping in by killing the boy from Six, although Six was unrelated to Azulina, then back to Furr as he took his revenge on the girl from Eight, and then to Copper and Furr as they killed the girl from Nine.

Cut to the girl from Twelve. It was the first time anyone from Twelve had made it to the final ten in over five years. Impending music grew, and the cameras cut to the clunky planes that rattled in the sky. The were different from the planes in Copper's history books. They were from after World War II, but had a similar design. Well, they would, since Panem didn't really use planes, since they had hovercraft technology. The shells began to fall, and the girl from Twelve had dove into the doorway of a building, avoiding the first few shells. She was fast and strong, but when the building collapsed, she hadn't stood a chance.

Cut to Copper and Emmer, as they approached the career den from the street. They hadn't shown that they had camped out under a table and gone around the building, so it looked to the audience like the two of them had miraculously survived the shelling. Indigo asked Copper how they'd survived, and they zoomed into her face as she told them they could avoid them by watching where they fell. It made them look wiley and rugged. Emmer, standing beside and just behind her, loomed above her, and the two of them gave the impression of a ragtag team of danger.

A montage of the airstrikes and tributes taking cover provided a mechanism of adding drama while indicating the passage of time. A scene following Copper as she took cover, then ran out into the street during an airstrike, the building she'd just left exploding behind her. Rubble flying in all directions, Copper charging along the street, dodging craters and somehow missing the shells that dropped. Her shouting was drowned out by the noise, but it looked like she was shouting at Indigo to take cover, and they showed him turning, the shell falling, and Indigo's cannon echoed, causing some of his would-be sponsors in the room to cry out. The montage wasn't over. With Rhymer's death, the alliance finally broke, Brannock dying soon after. It was the first time in at least two decades that both tributes from Seven had lasted into the final eight. Furr killed Martial, and the rains came.

There were four left. It had come down between tributes from One and Two, and being a career now offered no advantage. Although the final four had taken at least two weeks of the time in the arena, the editors made it seem like the countdown was ticking in everyone's heads, as they played a ticking sound while taking shots of each of the final four. Furr and Zither ambushed Emmer, he was on the run, and it looked like Zither would overtake him until Copper took her shot. The audience gasped when they saw Zither's chest blossom red, because the editors had turned Copper's presence into a surprise. Three left.

Time must have been running short, and they probably wanted to make Copper look more capable, because they decided to skip over how she had fought with Furr, lost, and been cut. It sort of looked like Copper had randomly been stabbed, because the next scene they showed was of Emmer returning to his den, and of Furr calling out to him, wearing the vest of knives. They zoomed in on the vest that everyone had come to associate with Copper. Furr taunted Emmer and the audience, making them think he'd killed Copper to get it. Emmer and Furr clashed, and seemed at an impasse. Then Copper appeared, with raucous cheering and applause and a swell of sound.

Copper, sitting across from Caesar, had fully checked out. She was barely aware of the program ending, the lights coming up, Caesar taking her hand and lifting her to her feet, raising her hand as a victor. She was unaware of the cold eyes that watched the girl bereft of her identity, and of the snakelike face that curled in a smile. She gazed at the audience, their stamping feet, their tears. They had felt every piece of emotion for all it was worth. She was mildly glad for this, because if it couldn't be her, then someone had to feel.


	9. Chapter 9

With these next few chapters, my goal is to show the fluctuations Copper faces in the aftermath of her Games. Here, you'll be able to get hints about the state of some of the districts and their state of discontent, which has been brewing for some time. That way, a revolution will seem more plausible.

All credit due to Suzanne Collins. Some characters are original. BestBrass.

* * *

"You did great!" Ligna's voice had been warm. They had finished the final interview with Caesar Flickerman, and were waiting to enter the party hall for one last hurrah before leaving for District Two. The stylist was fussing over last minute fixes, and chattering excitedly.

"She did nothing." Via jumped in. She had made it very clear that she was disappointed in Copper's lacklustre demeanor. "They didn't hate you," she amended, "but you're not their favorite, either." She huffed, turned on her heel and left the room snapping that at least she had been there to make sure everyone was on time.

"She's being overdramatic," Ligna soothed. "They do love you."

"She's right," a gruff voice broke in, and Copper felt hot breath on her ear and an arm on her shoulders. It was the notorious Haymitch Abernathy. "They feel like they've gone on a journey with you, watched you grow up." His words had slurred, and he refilled his flask with a half-empty bottle of something strong.

"What do you mean?" Copper asked, not actually caring.

"Well, think about it, Brass," he joked, slapping her on the back. He had picked up the use of her nickname from Emmer. "You came in -" he swept his arm majestically, staggered a little, "a cute little girl on a dusty quarry train. Would have been overlooked for the other careers, 'cept that girl, Inch-something or other, kicked it, and you were there, cute as a button. You kept on living in the arena, surprising everyone by coming out of nowhere," he chuckled. "Kept on," he mimed a boxer's hunch, "showing your spunk." Another swig from his flask. "And then last night, the face went blank, and you became inscrutable." He snorted and belched, wandering off. He proceeded to joke with and manhandle a peacekeeper, who struggled to untangle himself from the drunk man.

"Yes, he's always like that," Ligna said, answering a question Copper hadn't asked. "Now, you're to go in any minute now."

"Do they need me to smile?" Copper asked. For Clove, she meant. For some reason, it had only been the drunk man from Twelve who had reminded her of her existing family.

"At this point I'd say not," Ligna answered, frowning with thought. "He's right, you know. They see you as a little girl turned seasoned victor. There's been coverage of your brothers and parents, about their deaths in the quarries. The more enigmatic and stoic you are, the stronger it makes you seem." Good, because while Copper was prepared to be polite, she wasn't about to attempt to rub elbows the way she had practiced doing in training. She smoothed her gown. It was tastefully padded to make her seem more mature, and gave the immaculate air of someone worldly and graceful. And she entered the hall.

It wasn't too bad. She was able to eat as much as she wanted, Lyme had given her a smile and had stood back. It seemed she was trusted to carry off the deadpan show. The Capitol citizens were surprisingly respectful, and Copper found herself responding more graciously than she had anticipated, shaking hands, giving smiles and offering compliments. Warming up, she found it in herself to do some glad handing. Snow may have cleaned his house of traitorous victors and potential networks of rebels, but he had also lost two victors who had been among his top moneymakers.

"Copper! Come take a break from these bores." A rather controlling voice called out. Johanna Mason took her hand and dragged her from disappointed Capitol members. She led them to a relatively quiet corner where other victors had gathered. "Look what I found!" She called. It was Annie Cresta, Finnick Odair, Enobaria and a couple of the older ones from Six. "Quite the charmer, as you can see." Johanna made introductions and unceremoniously pried a drink out of one of Six's hands. "You've had enough." They certainly had.

"Hey, there, beautiful," Finnick gave Copper a salacious grin. He went in and planted a kiss on Copper's cheek, and the others laughed at her sputtering. "I thought that might liven you up." He tipped some grapes into his mouth and gave her another dazzling smile. He was popular for a reason.

"I was really glad you made it," Annie piped up. She had had a dazed look on her face for the most part, but was with it enough to give Copper a friendly smile.

"Thanks." Copper answered, and hesitated before saying, "I'm glad it was you, too, since it couldn't be Strate." Annie nodded absently, the faint, far off smile still on her face.

"Quite the diplomat, I see," Johanna cut in. "So your family's dead, is that right? What will you do, now?"

"Johanna!" Finnick warned, though not unkindly. Enobaria shot a look at Johanna and left, grabbing a half-empty wine bottle from a nearby table, ignoring the nearby avox who replaced the bottle almost immediately. The victors from Six had wandered off some time ago, and it was just Johanna, Finnick, Copper, and a distant Annie.

"What?" she asked, an innocent, somewhat insolent, expression of tone and expression. "I'm just wondering what its like to go from a huge family to no one." They turned to Copper.

"Dunno," Copper said, for lack of anything better to say. She had thought more would come, something wise, perhaps, or something to wipe the testy expression off Johanna's face. She could think of nothing else, though, and left it at that. There was a loaded moment. "It was nice to meet you," Copper eventually offered, and sidled off. She appreciated that the other victors had some depth to them, but she was more prepared for the party she had prepared for. She returned, back to the party goers who were content to avoid discussion of substantive or controversial topics. The party was almost over, at any rate, and she wanted nothing more than to sit still.

* * *

The homecoming celebration had been more of the same, and Copper suspected that Via had convinced the organizers to keep it to the point, so that the people could celebrate in the streets without having to listen to speeches followed with more fireworks and speeches. That, and the recent tragedy still hadn't wrapped up, because not all of the bodies had been recovered. It was unlikely, at this point, that they would find everyone, because the Capitol had given orders to continue quarrying the site, but into the side of the mountain, not down. Copper had seen Clove for the first time, and the filming crew had drunk in the sight of the twins reuniting. To fill the absence of their missing and presumed dead family, Clove had reigned some of their workmates in to make a more formidable welcome party.

The haze that had dampened Copper's energy seemed to lift, and she embraced them all, feeling a frantic kind of happiness. The twins had never been that close to their workmates before, but Briar, Saffra, Boq, Tiberius and Corbin were the closest people to friends they had, aside from fellow trainees. After the formalities, they had all gone to the Victor's Village, to the Katona house. Clove had found it in herself to bake again, and provided the seven of them with pies filled with the vegetables and fruits of the summer. She had gone up the mountain to set the table with newly cut sunflowers, and the teenagers shared the meal, listening to the distant music of the forced party. Corbin had stepped out to toss some compost out, and Briar had volunteered to start on the dishes.

"I'd like to go there, tomorrow." Copper spoke up. She didn't know what she had expected their reaction to be, but it hadn't included laughter. It wasn't mean, but Clove and all the others had looked at her and laughed. "What?"

"You don't look well enough to lift a chisel." Tiberius snorted. "What use would you be?" It was true, Copper realized. She looked down at herself, and saw that she no longer looked formidable. She had changed out of her homecoming gown, and washed her makeup off, leaving her with a form left weak from hunger, and a face that looked its age. She couldn't think of anything to say.

"It's not about being useful." Clove shot back, her temper flaring. Tiberius was decent enough to be guilty, and everyone grew quiet again. Copper suddenly remembered the tokens she had brought home with her, and she took Clove's hand.

"Since you're here," Copper said, taking the tokens off from around her neck. She pressed the two necklaces into her sister's hands, and the two of them stood for a moment before they embraced. It wasn't the rocking, joyous embrace they had performed for the cameras; this was one was still, tight, and filled with stifled expressions. Their workmates politely averted their gazes, sipping drinks and fiddling with silverware. District Two tended towards cultural utilitarianist values, and free expressions of fears or tears were less common in public. They released, and Clove made the executive order that Copper go to bed, and everyone else would clean up and turn in. She was so tired, it didn't occur to her to ask why their workmates had set up a small camp in their home. She didn't know the the rockfall had extended into the edges of town.

* * *

"Are you sure she's ready to see the site?" It was then next morning. Clove knew she might be overly anxious, but it was down to two, and she didn't want to jeopardize Copper's homecoming anymore than was necessary. Briar shrugged.

"It's not like the arena was a holiday." This was true. Many of the residents of District Two, and likely Seven, were exempt from mandatory viewings of the Games upon the rockfall. To be sure, it was so the quarries would be up and running as soon as possible, and not to allow extra time for a search, but the effect was the same. Many had not watched the latter half of the Games, and had only seen the first couple of weeks, some significant clips, and the summary episode. They heard footsteps descending the stairs, and Copper came into the living room, dressed in her quarry jumpsuit and boots.

It didn't take them long to reach the section of town that had been flooded with the debris. It smelled, and flies whizzed by their faces. There had been some kind of explosion with one of the gas lines, and a small neighborhood, the one closest to the quarry. The explosion hadn't killed anyone, as far as was known, but it had caused enough disruption to burst the water and sewage mains, which both ran under the sidewalks and streets. Water and sewage had flooded the street, and some still leaked here and there. No one paid any heed, since the focus was still on recovery, and the rain had washed a lot of it away, leaving the smaller boulders that had managed to roll thus far. They picked their way across the neighborhood, scrambling along the rough path that had been cleared of debris.

It was a long, quiet day, filled with the sounds of scraping rocks, boots, grunts and the pattering of the rain. The morning had started off rather efficiently, with the surviving quarriers of district two pitching in to find those who were trapped. By the afternoon, it had slowed to a heavy march-paced work. Deeper down, they started to recover more people, long too late. It was expected, really, since the rain impeded their efforts. Even if someone were to be caught in a miraculous cavern, unharmed and prepared to wait out their time until being uncovered, the rain had sunk into the dust and formed a watery mud, sealing most air pockets. Trudging home, passed their friends' crushed houses, the twins were almost relaxed. The Games had come and gone. The quarry's rockfall had done its worst. For all they had lost, it wasn't much different from what other families would lose. Every family would, every few generations, have tragedy strike. The Capitol almost ensured it. But with the weeding done, the twins were hoping to simply live.

They did live simply. A couple of weeks later, the Capitol had declared that the quarry was essential to the Capitol, and shut down recovery operations, restarting the normal quarrying. The twins and their five workmates who had moved in were able to begin creating a new normal. Copper would occasionally go with Clove and the others to the quarries, once they had opened up, but would often stay home and sleep. Or eat, or remain in bed. She became lethargic, as if she had won the Games the day previous, and was still depleted after the repeated adrenaline rushes and nerve wracking waits. She would spend most of her time devoid of thinking, but when she did, it was usually fleeting.

What had it all been for? Sure, she had Clove, but there had been ten Katonas living at Number 7 Victor's Village, and there were two left, with a conglomeration of mismatching orphans and displaced youth. How could she go back to the Capitol, year after year, being interviewed about the prospects of future tributes, when she wasn't who she had been before, she wondered. If she played her cards right, she might escape it. Annie Cresta had gone mad, what if she played up her own damages? It would certainly make sense, given all that had happened. But Annie Cresta had gone mad on screen, with the whole of Panem watching, and Copper doubted if she would be permitted to just not go. After all, Clove had yet to play the Games, or be passed over for another career, whichever happened. The minute they turned eighteen, Copper calculated, would be the minute she would keep from the limelight. They had recently turned fifteen, just before the reaping, so it was only three years until then.

There was the dark itch in Copper's mind that doubted this plan. If what Lyme had alluded to was at all true, it wouldn't work. Snow traditionally looked for a use from every Victor, be it a toy to lend out to his backers, or someone like Brutus, who did classified nefarious work in the shadows. Lyme had hypothesized that some of the rising discontent called for another example, someone younger than Abernathy, and someone from a district other than Twelve. Two, for example, just to show Snow could. Which meant Copper's fate might just be taking the track of Abernathy, the man who had won a Quarter Quell, who had lost everything, and who had turned into the depressed, paunchy man, bearing the flag of warning to others. Copper blinked.

She was kneeling in the soil on the hillside, having spent her energy making herself get out of the house. Checking her watch, she realized she had left earlier that afternoon, and had several hours before sunset. Her stomach growled, and she considered heading back. Eventually, she willed herself to stand, and adjusted a last coil of copper around the base of a sunflower stalk. They had fattened considerably, and were becoming pinched by their protective armor. With little time or patience to fix it, Clove had left it to Copper to salvage. She swiveled her head at the sound of a rustle of leaves. There, by the mint, there was a rabbit. It was young, plump, and chewing on her dandelions. Fingering her knife, Copper felt the heat die down from behind her vision, and she relaxed the hold on the blade, giving a warning shout to send the rodent off. Her father had never understood his wife's, and then Copper's appreciation for dandelions. Then again, he had been allergic to bees, and hadn't been swayed to favor dandelions when told the tenacious flowers bore about every vitamin bees needed for their health. The rabbit had eaten some of the longest leaves from several of the flowers, but the flowers had a seeming repulsion to death. It was no wonder her father had thought them weeds. For all of his annoyance from his wife's bees and the weeds that were seemingly impervious to weeding, he had held a grudging respect for them.

"Bees are an ultimate family unit," Tinder Katona had explained his respect to Emmer, Clove and Copper. "They each have their roles, and they have complete trust in one another that they'll each do their part for the hive. And for all I say about dandelions, they encompass everything I want for us." He had waited a beat, but none of his children said anything. They were digging into their meals, and were only half listening. "What do I want for us, you ask?" Their gangly father rhetorically carried on the conversation. "I want for us to be strong and together. Life will weed through the weak, and I want us to resist being uprooted." Copper shook herself from the memory. Their father had been a dreamy, poetic dork and, she suspected, a budding rebel. If this had been true, he had been a fool, as well. Looking around, Copper found herself further down on the far side of the hill, in a ravine where a seasonal stream would build up. It was largely dry from the summer months, but the recent heavy rains had pooled and turned the packed clays and soils into their familiar muddy banks. She and Clove used to gang up on Emmer and they'd have mud fights, leaving their shift manager to shake his head at the state of their quarry jumpsuits. They'd paint muddy masks over each other's faces, ears and necks to create an armor from the insects. The cool mud had given them a canvas to swirl with their fingers, shaping into houses, people, cities, before sitting back and watching the wind and rain wear them back into the puddles from which they had come.

Copper sat on a bank, absently swirling the mud. She nibbled on some of the velvet foot mushrooms she had plucked from one of the many fallen aspens that collected at the foot of the ravine. The ruggedness of the mountains proved ideal for aspens in climate, but they had trouble keeping rooted with the frequent rockfalls and landslides, and they littered the ravine. The sun was going down, sky growing red, Copper's face bearing random swipes of mud that ran into her hair. She didn't fully realize when Clove slid down next to her until she felt her sister break a piece of the mushroom from Copper's hand.

"You scared me," Clove let herself say. It was an understatement. Lyme had warned her of the change in Copper the night of the homecoming, and while that much had been clear, Lyme's face had been hard. "She'll need time, Clove," Lyme had said. "She'll need to be watched, too." Clove never believed Copper would consider such a thing, especially with the rockfall. Clove hadn't really worried, at least until that afternoon. She, Saffra and Tiberius had decided to break into one of the empty victor's houses and bake Copper pies, her favorite. Jago had been charged with keeping watch to make sure they weren't disturbed, and Briar and Corbin had been sent to Number Seven Victor's Village to keep Copper company, if she needed it. She thought she had misheard when Corbin had returned with the news that Copper was nowhere to be found, they'd been through the house twice, and Briar was spreading the search. The six friends had dropped what they were doing, and gone through the house again, to the quarry, through their yard and up the back to the mountain in the waning light. Seeing Copper's activity in the hillside garden, they'd had nowhere else to look.

Clove wasn't worried, really. If she were to harm herself, if Lyme had suggested she might, Copper would have been straightforward about it. Besides, it wasn't just Copper. People who took their own lives tended not to bother hiding it, and Clove doubted Copper would have gone through the trouble of doing just that. She wasn't worried. So Copper had changed. So she was empty, lethargic. So what if she hadn't completely recovered her weight, smiling, or sense of humor. She wasn't worried, and couldn't waste time worrying until they found their wayward housemate, either way.

"Don't worry, Clove," Tiberius had clapped a hand on her shoulder. "She'll turn up." She wasn't worried. Of course she wasn't.

"Copper!" Briar, up ahead, was calling. They were all within shouting distance of each other, but while the quarry mates were brave, and game enough to venture into the woods of the mountains that loomed over their district, they were out of their element. While Two wasn't fenced in, the people of Two almost never left the city limits, aside from shifts in quarries, in the mountain and on Capitol-ordered transports to other districts to deliver mined rock and weaponry. Apart from those who lived in Victor's Village who had the time, roaming the mountains that loomed overhead wasn't something done.

Tiberius had run up ahead, and now came puffing back, gasping that he and Briar had found her. Arriving at the top of the ravine, Clove saw her sister sitting at the bottom. She picked her way down the slope, hoping Copper would hear her and look up, but the twin was off somewhere, lost in thought as she often was these days. Tiberius, Briar and the others grouped together, letting Clove handle it. They formed a cluster, glancing at their unfamiliar surroundings. They were unused to being ensconced in the trees they'd so often look up at from the safety of their boundaries. Clove reached the bottom and approached her dreamy sister, snapping every twig she could to alert her. It was still a clear surprise to Copper, however, when Clove broke off a piece of velvet foot and popped it into her mouth.

"You scared me," Clove was glad her voice didn't waver, because it felt tight, like it would crack any moment. A look of guilt clouded the other's face as she looked at the sky, seeing the time. She swept a lock of hair behind her ear, unaware the she left another streak of mud along her finger's path. "Sorry," Copper had wanted to say. Meant to say it. For whatever reason, her mouth didn't open, and didn't say it. Frustrated with herself internally, she grew still physically, and did nothing. The silence stretched. Above them, their workmates shivered in the rapidly waning light.

"She wasn't going to stay there all night, was she?" Jago whispered. Tiberius elbowed him to make him quiet. "What's the hold up?" Jago piped up a moment later, and failed to avoid a cuff over the head from Saffra.

"I mean it, Copper," Clove had found her voice again. "you can't just do this. You'll disappear for hours on end, no word or warning. You've been back for three months, now. I'm still here." Clove had made plain statements, and let Copper read between the lines. She had been irresponsible, and hadn't fully appreciated that, for all they'd lost, there was still more at stake. If they failed to celebrate their remaining family, their efforts would be for nought. But something still nagged at Copper's conscience. It went beyond her guilt at forgetting to be accountable to her sister.

"Remember when Aunt Amber slapped me?" Was all Copper could manage. Clove took a moment to digest the comment, to read into it, because it wasn't designed to be a question. The slap had been their aunt's sudden rage at the Capitol, and at Copper's naive and impudent goal to bring Emmer home. There could only be one, everyone knew that. Then, in the arena, even though Clove had made every effort to stop watching the Games, the finale had highlighted the efforts of each sibling to keep the other alive. It had been Emmer who had succeeded in the end.

"It was the only way he'd let it happen," Clove soothed. They were pretending, of course, that any tribute had some semblance of control over the direction of the Games. Clove wasn't exaggerating when she said "He wanted it this way."

"I know," Copper shot back, failing at anger. Instead, it was a sort of wail, and the twin's workmates tried to pretend to each other they hadn't heard it. The swell of emotion Copper had ridden dissipated as quickly as a sneeze, and she leaned forward, swirling at the mud again. The sneeze had left her, now, and she felt drained, but lighter. The Katonas would have been empathetic to Copper's feelings, but furious with her behavior. She still had a lot to lose, and here she was, squandering her time knee-deep in mud, staring in a daze. Accompanied with a squelching noise, she stood up, and Clove rose with her. The two of them climbed the ravine together, and joined their waiting friends. To Copper's surprise, Briar gave her a hug, followed by Tiberius, Saffra, and then the group shared a brief embrace. They were on edge to get back, however, because the sky had darkened to an inky color, and the stars were peaking out. The seven of them returned home, and Copper set to work on the pies. Perhaps things could eventually come to feel almost normal.


	10. Chapter 10

In this chapter, Copper goes on the Victory Tour, and is able to develop more with Clove.

All credit is due to Suzanne Collins. BestBrass.

* * *

The prep team had been appalled at the 'vagrants' who squatted in Number Seven Victor's Village. Clove and Copper had stopped trying to explain why they'd let their friends move in, and the team had, at Ligna's bidding, ceased to ask. They washed and buffed and moisturized and primped their long-unseen victor, and chatted all the way. It was a new fad to whiten the whites of the eyes in the Capitol, because it, in the words of prep artist Abraxes, gave the impression of a dark, deep-in-thought look that had become so popular. Jago had snorted into his breakfast, and disguised it as a cough, triggering him to truly choke on his food. Abraxes had sniffed and commented on quarriers and their lack of refinement as he and Ligna had ushered Copper into the bathroom for more primping.

"I'll only be gone for a few days," Copper assured Clove and the others. They gave her doleful expressions and polite answers in front of the prep team. In the past few months, Copper had ceased to see their workmates as workmates, and instead as friends, which turned to family. Saffra and Corbin's families had become more established, and rebuilt their homes, and had reassembled under their new roofs, leaving the Katona household with the twins, Briar, Tiberius and Jago. "Keep warm," Copper waved farewell, and boarded the train. Winter fully gripped the district, with heavy snows and cutting winds. It was off to Twelve first, which would be marginally warmer than the mountainous Two. For now, Copper was to attend the 72nd Victory Tour.

As far as Clove and the others at Number Seven could see from the televised victory tour, it was alright. Twelve had no particular reason to dislike Copper, since one had died in the bloodbath at Zither's hand, and the other had died in an airstrike. They were, if anything, passive towards Copper, who had retreated into her mask of inscrutability. She had grown more vibrant since the Games, but it was all gone once on screen, with Copper's arena-famous flat personality. Whether on purpose or a defense mechanism, Clove was unsure. Copper read from her cue cards in a tone of forced, practiced inflection, her voice reduced to a flat delivery. If she was playing the shellshocked survivor, she was doing it well. Either that, or she had regressed to the state she had been in for her original homecoming.

Eleven was also alright to Copper, since their girl tribute had died before the Games had even started, dropping her token onto a mine, and their boy had been killed by Furr. They clearly didn't want to be there, and didn't like Copper, but like Twelve, they didn't have to try too hard at being polite to her. Ten had been calm, if a bit resentful, since ever tour was an example of the Capitol's method of directing the district's hate at the victor. Nine had been tense and awkward, since Copper had personally killed their girl, Juniper. Eight had been surprisingly alright, since Emmer had killed their boy to protect Copper. They still glowered at the flat reading of the cue cards, dictating a glamorization of Emmer's deed.

Seven had been almost kind to Copper, clapping hard and listening quietly. After all, both their tributes had allied with the careers, and Copper had even made a small friendship with Brannock, enough to get herself into trouble for him. It seemed that, just as Caesar Flickerman and other commentators had run out of ways to explain to the audience that Copper was in shock, and had lost her youthful flair, Copper had spoken out from her cue cards. It had been raining, still, in Seven, and Copper had ignored the offered umbrella. Her cuecards had smudged, and she admitted she couldn't read them, anymore.

"I guess I should say that they were good allies, Rhymer and Brannock," Copper had said awkwardly. Without her cards, she had looked up into the audience, then looked up farther at the rain, letting it stream on her face. Snapping back to the present, she shook droplets from her head. "I didn't know Rhymer much, and I guess I didn't get to know Brannock, either. But Brannock helped me carry Emmer." She trailed off again, evidently remembering. It was easy for the audience to see her unspoken thanks. "He helped buy me and my brother more time together." Another unspoken thanks. Then, she snapped back into the present and gave that year's slogan for Panem and retreated to the side of her stylist. Seven hadn't done much, but their approval showed in their faces as the cameras panned over the audience. Caesar had grinned and announced that the sweet little girl still lived within the hardened victor. Clove hated him for it.

Copper had killed the boy from Six, and Six showed they hadn't forgiven her, remaining silent. For her part, Copper's deadpan expression had returned, and she went through the motions. Emmer had killed the girl from Five, and Five had clearly kept it in mind as they listened to Copper's speech. Clove couldn't quite read them, but they seemed mixed, if angry. Four passed without much attention, but it was Three that Clove was unsure of. Copper had killed Laurel, Three's girl. It was the first widely publicized kill, and the reruns had gone on and on, coupled with Emmer's enraged launching of Eight's Talon over the ledge. They were quiet and ambivalent, and commentators had quickly lost interest.

The hate One showed Copper was strong, if unsurprising. Copper had personally killed both tributes from One. Zither had come in fourth place, and Furr had come in second, achingly close for same-district tributes to make it, even for careers. One had fixed hard smiles onto their faces, and stared at the diminutive girl, hoping against hope she would die similarly to Charm Inchcape. The Capitol had followed, with much partying. Copper remained impassive, but Clove and the others were able to see that Copper's deadpan expression had indeed become all the rage, and those in the Capitola had decided to mimic it by whitening the whites of their eyes and dying their eyebrows darker. It was garrish. They had showcased Copper's bouquets, to many audible 'ooh's and 'aah's. They had, truly, been beautiful, with different colors, subdued tones and bright, flourishing arrangements. They had raved over flowers, and bid on the bouquets, vying to take them home. They hadn't been for sale, originally, but the President had emerged, had announced that the proceeds were to fund the state's operations, and let the bidding begin.

Finally, the train returned the next morning, bearing a dour looking Copper. The festivities in Two had been genuinely raucous, since it was the first time they'd had time to truly celebrate anything since before the reaping of the 72nd Hunger Games. It was that night when Copper had gotten home at last. Her prep team had bustled in, hugged goodbye, stocked her closet with the outfits from her tour, and returned to the waiting train. Copper was home, and would have another six months before attending the next Games to be interviewed and shown off. Turning to Clove and the others, however, she saw their faces. Clove held an opened envelope in her hand, which she held out for Copper to read. It was addressed to Copper but Clove, being Clove, had opened it, anyway. Though it had arrived the day before, and likely been opened then, the paper still smelled strongly of roses. Copper felt herself go blank all over again. She was going back. The invitation left no room for excuses. Copper looked up at the others.

"You're not going." Clove was laying down the law. Briar left to pull the last of the pies from the oven, and Tiberius fiddled with the hem of his shirt. Jago diverted his eyes to the bouquet Copper had set in the entrance hallway. No one said anything, except for Clove, who repeated herself.

"I have to," Copper answered. There was nothing else for it, but her sister was shaking her head.

"You're a victor, you can say no. We can say you've gone mad. Copper," Clove took her by the shoulders, "if you go to the Capitol, he won't let you go." This was true.

"If I don't go, he won't let you live." Clove blinked in surprise before she flushed in rage that Copper had kept such a secret from her, her own family. Beyond that, she was clearly furious at being treated as someone who needed protecting. Well, it was truth time now. Clove turned from her in disgust and left the hallway, leaving a very uncomfortable looking Tiberius and Jago. Dishware and utensils were being slammed in the kitchen, announcing Clove's setting the table for dinner. Clove had been the more passionate of the two, and Copper had sometimes felt heartless in comparison, but now her own frustration boiled, and Copper followed the others into the kitchen. "I mean it, Clove." Copper hated confrontation, and hated having it in front of anyone outside the family, but Briar, Tiberius and Jago were family, now, weren't they? "I have to do my part, now you do yours."

"And what does that entail, exactly?" Clove shot back, giving vicious cuts to divide one of the pies.

"Train, do your quarry shifts, do well in school, test poorly in training. Do everything you can to avoid being reaped." Copper answered. "You'll probably have to go, anyway, but just in case, you should be prepared."

"I'm done playing by Capitol rules, Copper," came the defiant reply. Her contempt for Copper's acquiescence was clear in her face. Copper scoffed and threw some spoons onto the table.

"Yeah, good luck with that one. Let's all hope the odds will be in your favor."

"You're spineless and weak," Clove spat. This was escalating further than Copper had anticipated, but her own anger rose to the challenge.

"You're naive, I'm pragmatic." The sisters hadn't fought like this in a long while, years. Copper couldn't remember the last time they had truly fought. Inevitably, the fight was short lived when Briar pulled the last of the pies from the oven and declared dinner to be ready. Copper was glad it had ended, because the fever of rage always scared her at some level. Looking over her meal, she saw it still ran high in Clove. What had Copper done, fanning the fever which had already driven her sister to some sense of madness? While at home, and especially when Copper had returned from the arena, Clove had regressed to a gentler side, making Copper believe perhaps Clove's madness had gone. It had been a false hope, she realized now, because it had simply taken a back seat for a time. Now, Clove's madness had resurfaced, and again consumed her.

"Clove," Copper piped up. "Don't let yourself get distracted. It will kill you." She nodded, but said nothing, and Copper knew she had dismissed the advice. Clove had survived the past few years with her anger, and fury had helped her achieve the highest rankings in career training. Copper doubted if anyone aside from her and maybe Clove herself could see that her anger didn't end with simple rage, but ran into a mental instability that had been growing for years, ever since Strate had died.

It was several days later when Copper finally boarded the train to return to the Capitol, as long as she dared to wait. She hugged each of her friends, including Saffra and Corbin, who had come to see her off, and boarded the train. She had brought nothing with her, since Snow's letter had been clear that every luxury would be provided upon her return, and she wasn't willing to mix her possessions from home with the Capitol. She gave herself a mental shake. Adverse thinking would only lead to her slipping, which could only lead to trouble. She was just glad to have garnered a reputation for being apathetic, with low expectations in social situations.

The Capitol welcome had underwhelmed her for all of its colors and food, and Copper's only highlight seemed to come from other victors who had been dragged from their homes previous. They greeted her with varying degrees of friendliness at their reunion, and Copper was able to reacquaint herself with Annie, who was, even with her mental instability, the best company. When the hubbub had died down, Ligna had found her, and guided her to an avox who would take her to her quarters. The victors had, along with their luxury houses in the districts, a wing of a sprawling complex in the Capitol, located just next to the training center. Most of the victors under the age of forty, ones who the Capitol liked to keep track of, spent most of their time in the Capitol, living in their respective wings. The avox, who was introduced as Blye, was a woman almost as short as Copper herself, and that said something, because Copper was in the midst of slowly realizing her growth was stunted. Either from the career training from a young age or her hunger in the arena, or both, she hadn't grown in months. Clove had at least reached a normal height for girls, and was continuing to grow, leaving Copper at her diminutive stature.

Blye had led the way, Ligna chattering along. Each wing was designed with the victor in mind, and would reflect the elements that their prep teams and stylists thought would put them most at home. She had worked so hard on it, didn't Copper know, and Ligna was so excited to have even provided Blye with a small room, in case Copper decided to have her at her beckoning call. When Blye had come to the entrance, which faced a central courtyard the victors' quarters all faced, Copper had almost laughed with a twinge of humorous dread. The double doors that faced them were of solid wood, which Copper did indeed approve of, and were fixed with wrought copper hinges that stretched across the doors in a decorative scrawl. If everything was going to be themed around her name, she was in for quite a room. Blye unlocked the doors and handed the keys to Copper, stepping aside. It was unexpected.

The entrance hall was a step up and laid with hardwood flooring, a nice change from the marble of the central victor courtyards. To the left was a dining room, leading to the kitchen with every amenity, on the right was a parlour for entertaining guests. Continuing through the entrance hall lead to a circular area, revealing staircases that led to an open hallway above that circled the room, and more doors to rooms for uses Copper couldn't possibly come up with. But the circular living room was flooded with natural light from high windows above, and it struck the wood furniture, showing the glow of its lustre. The doors directly across were open, letting in a breeze from sprawling gardens. Ligna had truly outdone herself, because for however stupid a couple of her outfits had been, she had found a calling in her arrangement of Copper's quarters.

Copper had tuned out the spiel Ligna was giving. She was fairly certain she'd repeat it all over again over the lunch, courtesy of Blye, that she'd invited herself to. Leaving the stylist and avox behind, she stepped over the threshold of the doors into the sun. The garden was wide and deep. A couple of young trees grew in the far corners of the garden, but aside from them and a greenhouses flanking the sides, the entire yard was bare, waiting for Copper. It faced south, and would receive most of the day's sun for most of the year. Eyes closed, laying in the dirt despite the cold, Copper found herself to be content for the first time that day. She doubted she'd ever feel at home in this place, which could only be called a gilded cage, but servitude was nothing new to her and the family at large. For the time being, it was hers.

"It's one of the smaller apartments, to be sure," Ligna admitted apologetically. "But since you'll be working as florist, the President said the emphasis would be on workspace." She took a delicate sip of the soup. "We're just a block away from the President's mansion, which is convenient, since you've already received several commissions. Imagine, you've yet to grow anything in a proper garden, and you've already been given an avox to help manage your commissions." She had put an annoying emphasis on the word proper, as if the bouquets Copper had brought to the Capitol had been grown in a trough. She meant well, however, and had truly outdone herself, for which Copper was grateful. Eventually, Ligna took her leave, and left the two awkward girls, neither of whom could possibly be over eighteen in age.

"Blye, right?" Copper confirmed, feeling more awkward than not. She nodded, shyly, her brown curls shining. She was truly beautiful, probably around seventeen.

"I'll admit, I'm totally out of my depth in business. I've never done this before." That much was clear. Blye gave a nod, although what exactly this meant, Copper didn't know. Perhaps she was just showing acknowledgement that she'd heard. This couldn't last forever, this one sided conversation. "We'll figure it out." Over the next couple of days, Blye arranged to have soils, seeds, pots and tools brought in. With the next season's commissions hanging over her head and spring coming, Copper had sown the seeds in the greenhouses and begun tilling the rows in the garden. She had enough seeds to plant about half of the garden, and she still had to figure out what to do with the other half. That would come later.

It was still cold most of the time, with the high altitude, but Blye seemed to anticipate every need or want of Copper's before Copper knew she needed or wanted it. She would break from tilling the cold ground, put a hand to her back, and there Blye was, holding a steaming cup of soup or chocolate. One day, Copper felt something between Blye's hand and the cup she passed over, and when Copper had finished half of it, sitting in the dirt, she felt she could see what it was. It was a note, written in a Capitol hand, with typical flourishes and fancy cursive letters. Cursive was taught in Two, but it was rare that anyone bothered to perfect it. Only in the Capitol was it normal to perfect something like a writing style. Finch, Copper's tutor, had tried to get Copper to write in cursive, but the end result was a cross between unruly scratches with flourished connections, a decidedly distinctive hand. The note was neat, and gave an introduction of sorts. Her name was Blye Allardyce, she was almost eighteen, and had been an avox since she was fifteen. It was short, to the point, and left Copper hungry for more.

"Blye," Copper spoke up the next morning, "if you've got the time, I'd like some help in the garden today." She nodded, and they finished their breakfast. Of course she had time. Her time was Copper's time. Once out in the garden, with both of their backs bent, faces down, Copper began a low murmur. She told Blye little stories of her life. Like the time she and Clove had gotten mad at Emmer, and had cut his mattress open to put eggs inside. Weeks had passed, and by the time the smell had developed, neither twin had remembered it was them at first, or what they'd been mad for when confronted.

There was the time when Clove and Copper both had wanted to ride on Strate's back, but he was sore from training, so Emmer had taken it upon himself to carry the both of them. The three of them had arrived home a full hour after their normal arrival, because Emmer had been too stubborn to admit they were both too heavy for him, even after Strate had doubled back, feeling guilty. The girls had offered to walk, realizing the drama was all because of their whims, but Emmer had told them he'd carry them then or they'd be walking for good, with no chance of a ride in the future. He probably hadn't meant it, but it was a severe enough threat to keep both girls clinging to his shoulders. All through the stories, Blye listened, occasionally nodding to show she was listening. Straightening from their inefficient work, which neither was truly invested in, Blye's eyes were brighter than usual, and she wiped her nose more often, from causes other than the cold.

Copper didn't ask Blye to the garden the next day. Instead, Blye gave her several sandwiches wrapped in a cloth, and as she passed it over, they dropped into Copper's hands with a suspicious weight. Sitting in a corner of the greenhouse, Copper unwrapped the sandwiches to find more of Blye's stories written inside.

Blye was a Capitol girl herself, so didn't know any of the hardships of the Districts growing up. That had all ended when she was fifteen, and she had agreed to sneak out of the Capitol to try to make it to One, where they'd try to see Argos Waxer, the victor from One in the 68th Hunger Games. She and her friend, a boy named Whytt who basically wanted to be Argos Waxer, were inspired by Waxer's exploits of sneaking around the arena to want to sneak out of the Capitol to meet him. It was a fanciful, harebrained idea, but it must have made sense to them to some degree, because a third friend, a girl named Ravika, had gone with them, too. They had been caught, of course, but before they could explain that they were simply loyal fans, Ravika was dead, and Whytt was blinded in his left eye. Whytt and Blye had waited in their little cell in the hovercraft, listening to the officials receive a telling off for not checking to make sure they were defecting first. They couldn't very well say they'd made a mistake in recovering the young teenagers, so by the time they were back in the Capitol, Whytt and Blye were avoxes.

Blye's parents had bribed someone to see her before she was sent to the sewers, and they had been nearly insensible. They promised her they'd take care of her younger brother, and that they'd somehow get her promoted from the sewers. They were relatively wealthy in the Capitol, but even they had to scrape and save, because the bribes were enormous to get someone out of the sewers, where most avoxes spent their lives. They had finally managed it several months ago, using a connection to one of Ligna's assistants to get Blye such a post as with a victor. Victors were known to be the least demanding in terms of waiting for tasks, as Capitol people tended to give tasks at random times of the day, urgently, before dismissing their earlier request for a different demand. Blye had ended the note by thanking Copper.

Copper had sat back, leaning against the leg of one of the tables in the greenhouse. This girl had been so naive, and punished so harshly. She had been Copper's age when her tongue had been cut out, and sent to work in the drains, a place Copper had never bothered to think about until now. How could this girl have the nerve to thank her, when she was there for the sole purpose of serving a girl three years her younger, with no chance of earning her way out of the hole she found herself in? Copper wiped her eyes, her nose, and stood, realizing she had to repot some of the sprouted seeds. She had neglected to do it earlier in the day, and had somehow spent several hours sitting there, so it was dark by the time she finally came in. Blye had set her table, and was dutifully waiting off to the side, to serve the slightest need Copper might have.


	11. Chapter 11

Again, there is more to cover in the lead up to Copper's decisions, and how they will affect the 74th Annual Hunger Games.

All credit goes to Suzanne Collins. -BestBrass.

* * *

Spring came, and summer followed in step, now, and Blye was helping Copper to transfer the last of the sproutlings outdoors to the dark, freshly turned soil. Communication was smoother now, with several months of practice. Blye had taught Copper bits of signing used among the avoxes, and now Copper relied on it to understand Blye's questions on how to transplant the flowers. The watery sunlight had finally fought its way to a strength that warmed their backs as they worked.

Copper had finally stopped quaking inside. She had been shaken several days after she had moved in, when there came a knock at the door and a bell pulled, ringing through the apartment. Blye had come to the garden, paler than usual, and beckoned to Copper. Copper had been on her knees in her overalls, sleeves rolled up, and covered in dirt. It had rained, and the soil had quickly turned to a dark mud. She had trudged back to the house, shedding her boots when she looked up. The sight of the President had frozen her for a moment, and she managed to unclasp her overalls to make herself more presentable. There was no time to wash up, but Copper was uninclined to put effort in how she looked for the unannounced visit.

Together, they sat in the study, Snow taking the initiative of sitting himself behind the desk. Blye had made a pot of tea and presented scones she had made that morning for them, and Snow sat and tucked in, eating Blye's scones. He had taken his time in starting a conversation, and when he finally did, he didn't seem to have a point. He made the small talk, Copper awkwardly sipping her tea. After a time, he had stood, and taken his leave. Blye had brought in more tea to calm her, and the pair sat in the study, unsure of what the President's visit had meant. Then, two days later, he had come again, and again. He came erratically, sometimes with as many as four days in between, sometimes every day. His visits had begun the week she had moved in, and now, several months in, the President had again rung the bell and knocked using the knocker. Blye stood and retreated into the house, and Copper braced herself. Blye had been flawless, making sure to bake some delicacy every morning on the off chance he would visit, and had the kettle perpetually filled. She had filled one of the cupboards with teas to offer him a variety, and obtained an enormous jar of honey to set the tray for his visits. Here he was again, sitting at the desk, Copper was content to sit, sipping her tea, giving polite answers.

"You haven't opened up to me, Copper." The president chided quietly. He took another sip of his tea.

"How do you mean, sir?" Copper asked. She saw his approval at being called 'sir.'

"I have spent the past several months making small talk, but now I see you are deeply troubled." His town was light, seemingly insignificant, but as he poured himself another cup, Copper could hear the slight annoyance at her reticence.

"Oh." She knew she was playing with fire, but she took an unexpected pleasure at giving empty responses, wasting his time.

"How is Clove these days, do you know?" Snow stirred his cup, never taking his eyes off of her, and what humor Copper had had dissipated.

"I haven't spoken to her since I arrived here." Copper answered carefully. He raised his eyebrows, feigning surprise.

"I'd have thought you would keep closer tabs on your last remaining family. Afterall," he drew in a suffering breath, "out of ten people who lived in that house, only two remain alive." His eyes sharpened at Copper's face, and she realized she'd let her face slip. She couldn't be sure of what she'd shown him, but she hoped it would be just sadness.

"Poor girl," The president mused. "I have been insensitive. You've been feeling guilty this whole time, and haven't said a word to anyone." She had sort of told Clove, she supposed, but it was true. Clove had had to figure it out.

"Guilt for what?" Copper's voice wasn't as clueless as she'd hoped it would be.

"You came so close to saving Emmer, something you promised you would do." Snow was blatant, now. "And now your sister is the last thing you have left, and she's all alone, training for her turn at the Games."

"What do you -" she stopped herself, and restarted, seeing his lips twitch in triumph. "Do you need anything else, another biscuit?" He answered her true question this time, ignoring her coverup.

"I want you to release your guilt."

"Why? Why are concerned for my feelings?" The confusion at his visits was finally surfacing, and Copper wanted the man out of her house.

"Because, for all the Katonas are known for, its for their love of family." He breathed his sticky breath onto her. "And your loyalty is renowned. I want it."

"You have it." Copper answered honestly, confused. He shook his head.

"Not obedience, girl. You give me obedience. I want loyalty." The two words were basically the same to her, save for some nuance. What could the distinction mean to him? But then the aged man stood, fixed her with a smile and complimented her on their progress before seeing himself out. Blye had found her in the study a minute later, a fresh pot of tea, several servings of honey in it, but Copper couldn't stomach it. Progress? Towards what end? It was true, she was obedient to him for the sake of her family, but unless he killed Clove outright, that wasn't going to change. If he left her alone, she'd still be obedient, and if he killed her, then his hold over her would be gone, so what was his game, Copper wondered.

Blye guided her to the sitting room, and turned on the screen to watch the opening of the 73rd Annual Hunger Games. The reapings went as usual. Copper could see Clove in the audience of Two. They had just turned sixteen, and Copper was hoping Clove would age out without ever having to volunteer. If they both played their cards right, they just might manage it. It worry Copper that Clove looked so eager, because if she were to truly volunteer, earlier efforts to avoid the Games would be for nought.

There were transplants to finish, and snails to catch, so Copper finished watching the reapings, which ended with two particularly hungry looking children from Twelve. That said something, because tributes from Twelve rarely looked well-fed. Blye stayed in the dining room to clean up, and to eat her own meal before bed, and Copper proceeded to her room. She had had several rooms to choose from, ranging in size and luxury. She had tried to sleep in one of the larger ones, but after a lifetime of sharing a smaller room with her sister, she found it wasn't working, and she had opted for a smaller room, where she didn't feel she was rattling around.

The Games were again set in a ruined city-themed arena, but this time one with ancient Roman architecture. The commendators, Caesar and Lartius Baxol, hypothesized that the decision was due to the previous year's difficulties in exucuting Copper hadn't paid as much attention to Finch's books about Rome than to the ones about World War II. Rome had been relatively interesting, she supposed, but it was rather similar to Panem, and it had felt too close to home. As the tributes were whittled away, a contender for the winning seat erupted over the other careers, surprising the Capitol. Atticus Dalca, from Seven, had been rated relatively well for his strong physique, but had been passed over for his gentility. It was clear that he was strong in a physical sense, having learned to wield his axe from an early age like so many from his district before him. But he had lacked the ruthlessness that earlier victors like Johanna, Enobaria, Brutus and Copper herself had shown. But like Annie Cresta, Atticus Dalca slowly proved his mettle, and won his way into the hearts of the Capitol through his compassion. He had come across the dying boy from Twelve, had given him the last of his water to ease his death. He had just as quickly throttled the girl from Nine, who had tried to sneak up on him in the night.

Throughout the Games, the President still came to visit Copper, to prod at her memories of her now-dead siblings. He would start with Cadfael, asking how close they were, move on to Rye to lament how young he had died. It didn't compare, of course, to young Emmer, who had given his all to have Copper get out. Would he be proud, Snow would wonder, or would he be glad that their aunt and uncle, and their parents hadn't had to live long enough to see all of their children die before they had? Copper had started to zone out during his speeches. What was he trying to get at, she would wonder. How was insulting the memories of her family, raking up old hurts, going to get her to like him more? At this rate, she would kill him herself, if not for Clove's precarious situation.

Atticus Dalca was having trouble in the arena, meanwhile. He had been caught in an impromptu battle against the boy from Two, who had cleaved the axe's handle in two, rendering it useless. Atticus had ultimately prevailed over Two, and thrown him from the edge of one of the colosseum's upper floors. A pack of muttated lions, crossed with some kind of reptile, had converged on the boy from Two, tearing him apart. It had driven the audience to a new level of excitement, to watch as an underdog became a top contender to win, with only two other tributes left. One was a girl from Eight, who had successfully hidden from the other tributes, and was near death from dehydration, but nonetheless, it was unlikely the other two would find her in time for the end of the Games. The third tribute left was the boy from One, who was a little delirious from thirst and hunger, but otherwise fairly strong.

The President had come by for a visit, and said there was no time, or need, to hold out.

"What do you mean?" Copper had asked, as they watched the Games.

"Take little Rezka, there," Snow responded, eying the pale girl as she slept in her nook between the boulders. "She's been using the tactic of waiting the others out. She thinks time matters for her. She has to hope the other two will die before she does, because she's too weak to do anything else. Unless -" he smiled as a flock of muttated mosquitoes and dragonflies, enlarged to be the size of mockingjays, came and piled onto her. She streaked out of her den, but it was much too late. At least six or seven of the giant insects had stuck themselves into her, and were already inflating as they fed on her. She made it only a few steps further before she staggered and tripped, her cannon sounding to scatter the mutt mosquitoes.

"Time was not the issue for her," Snow continued, ignoring Copper's daze. "It was her unwillingness to take action. So you see," he took a delicate bite of one of Blye's desserts, "she didn't die just because she ran out of time, but because she had used it improperly." Copper had stopped breathing. The implication was there, but she wasn't sure if she was thinking properly. Had Snow truly arranged to have Rezka killed to make a symbolic point to Copper? All to tell her that it was Copper's move, her turn to give herself over to him? Did he think it would work? If there was one thing Copper had learned over the years, it was that the best action was often to do nothing, so she was at a loss now. She had to decide between doing nothing, which would enrage Snow, or choosing an action, which might cross him the wrong way, anyway.

"I still don't know what you mean," Copper managed at last, trying to buy more time. It was true, she still had no idea what game he was playing.

"I am saying," Snow leaned forward, breathing his bloody breath into her face, "that I have all the time in the world."

"What do you want with me? What can I give you that someone else can't?" Copper was taken aback by her own forwardness, but she felt frayed and on edge. In her peripheral vision, she could see Blye's extra tray of baked goods by the doorway, sitting ready should the President need anything more. It angered her that Blye should be forced to use their own stores for the President's snacks before Copper remembered that everything in the Capitol was his.

"Security." The truth in his voice surprised her, and he continued. "There are few people whom I truly trust, and the districts, I am sure you've heard, are becoming unsettled." She hadn't heard of discontent in the districts, actually. Seven probably was, after the landslides, but they'd never do anything, and Two was hated by the other districts almost as much as the Capitol itself. Revolt in any of the other districts would be news to her.

"You can't really think you're unsafe," Copper argued. If they were being honest with each other, they might as well be open, as well. "You've got all the Peacekeepers and guards you could need."

"The guards are in it for money, and the Peacekeepers are from Two." He waved his hand dismissively. He had relaxed physically, pleased he'd finally gotten a true conversation in motion.

"I'm from Two."

"You're a victor, and you've got everything to lose. You're different. If anything sets the districts off, then war is almost assured."

"All of these visits and killing the girl from Eight," Copper opened incredulously, "all so you can have a bodyguard?"

"Yes, and time is running short." Snow took a last bite of Blye's cobbler and left, leaving Copper to finish the latest installment from the Games, as Atticus and the boy from One fought to survive the night. Every night, the arena would be stalked by giant muttations with the bodies of scorpions, their enormous tails ready to strike, and the heads of a crocodile, eyes constantly alert and searching for prey. With two tributes left, and both left exhausted, it seemed the Gamemakers were going to let both have a night of rest before their final battle.

Copper stretched and stood. She felt wired, after having such a blatant discussion with the man she hated most. Surely he knew she hated him, and yet he still saw her as his best option, even over Brutus, or Argos Waxer, who had won the 68th Games. Waxer, from One, was probably one of the only victors to not truly hate the President, and if Two was a supporter of the Capitol, One was their lapdog through and through. If he wanted Copper to stand beside him, attend events with him, fine. If it kept Clove out of the Games until she was too old, helping Snow feel more secure was the least she could do.

The next day, Snow came again, to watch the final battle between the boy from One and Atticus from Seven. This time, Copper spoke up before the Games began their airtime.

"If it will help you feel more secure, I can keep an eye out for you," Copper had offered, inwardly kicking herself. She should have practice how she would make the offer. But then the President smiled in approval, his skin stretching. Copper was incredulous her new tack of speaking more freely had actually worked some good.

"That would do wonderfully, Copper. Thank you." And they settled down in their chairs to watch the final battle. Atticus, without his axe, had gone in search of another weapon. They flicked to a clip of the interview with Atticus's aunt, the only family he had, apparently. They chose a clip of his Aunt Flicka saying what a hardworking boy he was, and how she would love to see him again if he won. It had been recorded when Atticus had made the final eight, when she probably doubted he would truly win.

They switched to a clip of the boy from one, Alabaster's, family. He had both parents and three siblings at home, all of whom were fair, clean and well-groomed. They were recorded as much more confidant, exclaiming how they couldn't wait to greet him when he returned home. It was a similar script her own family had followed when Cadfael, Rye and Strate had gone. Even for Emmer and herself, although they were much more restrained, knowing either way, they'd lose at least one of them. To avoid watching Alabaster's family, so proud and confident, Copper fiddled with the end of her braid.

Alabaster hefted his spear. He was jittery, shaking from his thirst and hunger. Lartius Baxol pointed it out the audience and narrated some as he approached stealthily, opting for a closer shot to compensate for lost accuracy. Atticus had excellent hearing, a fact that had become clear earlier in the Games when he had sensed and then flushed out nearby opponents, even when the arena's devices couldn't pick up much noise. Of course he heard Alabaster's approach, or somehow knew how close he was, because when Alabaster had prepared to shoot, Atticus had visibly tensed. He hit the ground, the spear whistling off out of reach. Seeing his weapon miss its target, and that they were both empty handed, he had shot off after it, hurtling into Atticus. The two tumbled over one another, stirring up the dust as the Capitol audience on screen shrieked with excitement. And then Atticus's hand found the rock.

The president had sighed in contentment as the screen shared a corner with Alabaster's watching family, sharing the moment with all of Panem as another child died for the Games while their family watched. Copper hadn't understood a lot of Clove's hatred, but she thought she might be getting just a taste of it now, as she gripped her teacup and nodded as Snow stood and took his leave. He would be gone for a few days at least, while he presided over celebrations over Panem's newest victor. Copper thought for a moment. For that, she was glad. Camera crews had dropped by frequently since her return to the Capitol. They had bid her to change into dressier clothes despite their impracticality in gardening. They filmed her gardening, filmed her from every angle as she fiddled with some leaves and smelled flowers, as she arranged the ceramic pots in the greenhouses and sat in her sunlit, circular room, looking dreamily into some middle ground. Now, she had passed the torch, so to speak, on to a new victor, one with the distinction of having grown from an underdog into a fierce competitor.

Indeed, Copper was invited to attend the galas in honor of Panem's latest victor, and Ligna predictably came with different clothing options, and Abraxes and the rest of her prep team descended, lavishing creams and lotions on her in their fervor to rid her face of acne, and to smooth the creases in her brow from frowning. They clipped dead ends and gagged at her nails, assailed with outdoor work and dirt, before filing them to smooth them, and buffing, polishing them. They chattered at her success with the Capitol, even without having left her quarters much. Even with the new victor, magazines and articles featuring Copper's face, Copper's flowers, were selling out. Models, including some of the earlier victors, had begun to pose with stoic expressions, creasing their brow just so, so as to imitate Copper's squinting from the arena. But now much of the attention paid to her would subside in lieu of Atticus, the newest victor, a tall, handsome boy. He was very different from Copper, and the Capitol had loved it, for which Copper was also glad.

The past year had been an odd one, with the Capitol being told to like and imitate a girl who had a generally inexpressive face and demeanor. Copper, for all of her aunt's tirades about giving the audience a show, and Finch's explanations on why even faking emotion might be a good idea, was terrible at reacting the way she wanted to react. She had sometimes theorized that she forgot she had a face, not looking at it very often, and wouldn't make it do things. Even her brothers had teased her for her lack of expressions. They had been wonderful at being on display for the cameras, always looking noble or fierce at a given moment. The editors of the Games, for their part, had likely had to work at getting angles of Copper's face where she didn't have a stupidly blank expression.

The Capitol had a new tribute, one who was much more expressive. He was endearing, gentle and warm. He could also be dark and alluring and most importantly, he looked it. Copper somehow hadn't grasped the concept, yet. It was clear that the editors of the Games had had an easier time of picking shots where Atticus looked good.

Ligna stepped back, eyeing Copper's dress. It was certainly beautiful, but it felt different than usual. Sturdier, breathable. She looked at Ligna, who eyed her knowingly.

"The president himself asked for certain specifications of your dress," Ligna explained. So that was it. The dress didn't do anything, as far as Copper could tell, but it was clear that it was meant to be moved in. If Snow really suspected some kind of attack, would he really trust Copper to save his life? What he was planning, Copper itched to know.

The gala was long, made longer by Snow's note, insisting she get there before him. She stood, chatting with other victors and trying to find adequate responses to other Capitol citizen's inane conversations. Eventually, the President made his entrance, and Copper made sure she was part of the tide that flooded towards him, waving and shouting over the hubbub. She elbowed her way to the front and subtly stood by, trying to seem eager. She didn't fully believe it when a light fixture loosed from its placement and swung by its cord, directly at the president.

Sidestepping, she cleared a path for herself and lunged at it. It swung towards Snow from behind, and almost everyone in the room was facing him, beginning to shout as they saw what was happening. Copper clashed with the light, feeling its metal bite into the skin of her hands as she gripped it, heeling herself lifted from her feet. The cord snapped, spraying sparks, and Copper landed blind, still clutching the light. The fireworks in her blinded sight began to subside as she looked over at Snow, who had turned around and stumbled back some, and at the audience which stood stock still. Then they erupted, with applause, tears and shouts. A peacekeeper approached, and gently took the fixture from her hands, leaving them with cuts. Her vision was still affected by the sparks that had flown, but she was able to see well enough. Then Snow was there, taking her hand, pulling her under his arm, and she found herself blinded once more by the flashing lights of cameras, and glints from lenses. Looking down, she saw that her cuts had started to flow freely, now. Snow took her hand and raised it, and the crowd cheered more vehemently.

By the next morning, her cuts had sealed, and quickly healing, courtesy of the creams, sprays and lotions provided by the Capitol. She was exhausted, by the President, who had given her a sly look that said he had been right, and by the impromptu interview with Caesar, who had kept her up for hours, trying to wheedle a fuller picture of her every thought and move in the moment she had taken for saving the President from certain injury if not death. Blye had let her lie in an extra several hours, and roused her by opening the window of her room, letting in the cool morning air. She faced Copper and made several gestures. Someone was waiting to meet with her. Judging by her lack of tension, it wasn't Snow. Copper sat up and changed, resolving to kick them out if they were another camera crew, wanting her to relate the story again.

It was Atticus, the victor of the 73rd Annual Hunger Games. He had dressed casually, and sat in the parlour, awkwardly running his hand over his head.

"Atticus, it's a pleasure." Copper had no idea whether it was proper to greet him by his given name for their first time meeting.

"The pleasure's mine," he fidgeted with his hands, playing with the hem of the pocket in his pants. He drew breath to say something, and stayed silent. Copper hadn't liked the parlour much, ever since the President had decided to have new furniture brought in to match his own tastes, religating the original furniture to the rooms upstairs. Ligna had visited several days after and frowned in displeasure, as well. The room didn't fit right, somehow, and lent a hand in Atticus's feelings of discomfort.

"Follow me," Copper offered, and stepped back to the entrance hall. He followed, and she led them to the circular room at the back.


End file.
